Henry Travers Henry Travers Travers John Heagerty (5 March 1874 – 18 October 1965), known by the stage name Henry Travers, was an English film and stage character actor. His most famous role was the guardian angel Clarence Odbody in the 1946 film classic "It's a Wonderful Life". He also received an Academy Award nomination for his supporting role in "Mrs. Miniver" (1942). Travers specialized in portraying slightly bumbling but friendly and lovable old men. Travers was born in Prudhoe, Northumberland, and was the son of Daniel Heagerty, a doctor originally from Ireland, and Ellen Gillman Hornibrook Belcher. His mother was a
Ben Travers (in a way that pre-echoed Joe Orton), "A Cup of Kindness" was what he called "a Romeo and Juliet story of the suburbs"; and "A Bit of a Test" had a cricketing theme at the time of the controversial "Bodyline" series. Travers's biographer H Montgomery Hyde records that between 1926 and 1932 the Aldwych box office grossed £1,500,000 in receipts, and the aggregate number of performances of the nine Travers farces totalled nearly 2,700. During the 1930s, film versions of ten of the twelve Aldwych farces were made, mostly directed by Walls. Travers wrote the screenplays for eight of them.