From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Oscar O'Shea (8 October 1881 – 6 April 1960), born in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, was a Canadian-American character actor with over 100 film appearances from 1937 to 1953. O'Shea was a comic actor who earned a million dollars but lost it all in the Great Depression. His first straight role came in a Federal Theatre Project production of It Can't Happen Here, a play based on the novel of the same name. His first film was Captains Courageous (1937). Beginning in 1929, O'Shea operated the Oscar O'Shea Players repertory theater company in the Embassy Theatre in Ottawa, Canada. He eventually ended the enterprise "to seek a field where his art would be more widely appreciated." He then set up an operation in Chicago, "where he managed his own theatre and stock company during good and bad years." O'Shea died in Hollywood, California in 1960 at age 78.