The Great McGinty - Cast

Cast

• Brian Donlevy as Daniel McGinty
• Muriel Angelus as Catherine McGinty
• Akim Tamiroff as The Boss
• Allyn Joslyn as George
• William Demarest as The Politician
• Louis Jean Heydt as Tommy Thompson
• Harry Rosenthal as Louie
• Arthur Hoyt as Mayor Wilfred T. Tillinghast
• Libby Taylor as Bessy
• Thurston Hall as Mr. Maxwell
• Steffi Duna as The Dancing Girl

Cast notes:

• Both Donlevy and Tamiroff reprised their roles in Sturges' 1944 comedy The Miracle of Morgan's Creek.
• This was the first film directed by Preston Sturges, and in it he used many of the actors who became part of his unofficial "stock company", a troupe of character actors within the studio system. Appearing in McGinty are: George Anderson, Jimmy Conlin, William Demarest, Byron Foulger, Harry Hayden, Esther Howard, Arthur Hoyt, George Melford, Charles R. Moore, Frank Moran, Emory Parnell, Victor Potel, Dewey Robinson, Harry Rosenthal and Robert Warwick.
• This was the third film written by Preston Sturges that William Demarest appeared in, after Diamond Jim (1935) and Easy Living (1937), and he would go on to do seven others (see note).
• Jo Ann Sayers was originally scheduled to play Catherine McGinty, and was borrowed from MGM, but she was not found to be satisfactory and was replaced.
• Tamiroff's malaprop-laced performance inspired the cartoon character Boris Badenov, the male half of the villainous husband-and-wife team Boris and Natasha on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Sturges used Tamiroff's character to skewer one of Hollywood's hoariest practices when he repeatedly pleads, "Don't make me say everything twice, will you?"
• Heydt had starred in the Broadway production of Sturges' first big success, "Strictly Dishonorable."