Life and Career
He came from a Jewish theatrical family: his mother was a dancer, and his sister Florence Halop was a child actress, who later worked on radio and in television. After several years as a radio juvenile, Billy was cast as "Tommy Gordon" in the Broadway production of Sidney Kingsley's Dead End in 1935, and traveled to Hollywood with the rest of the Dead End Kids when Samuel Goldwyn produced a film version of the play in 1937.
In an interview in his later years, he claimed that he was paid more than the other 'Dead End' actors, which had contributed to bad feelings in the group, and that he hated the name 'Dead End Kids'. He also played the vicious bully Flashman in the 1940 Tom Brown's School Days opposite Cedric Hardwicke and Freddie Bartholomew.
After serving in World War II, Halop found that he had grown too old to be effective in the roles that had brought him fame. At one point, he was reduced to starring in a cheap East Side Kids imitation at PRC studios, Gas House Kids (1946). Diminishing film work, marital difficulties, and a drinking problem eventually ate away at Halop's show business career.
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