Grant Mitchell (June 17, 1874 – May 1, 1957) was an American stage actor on Broadway and character actor in many Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s. He appeared on Broadway from 1902 to 1939 and appeared in more than 125 films between 1930 and 1948.

Biography

Mitchell was born John Grant Mitchell, Jr. in Columbus, Ohio, the only son of American Civil War general John G. Mitchell. His paternal grandmother, Fanny Arabella Hayes, was the sister of President Rutherford B. Hayes. He attended Yale University, where he served as feature editor of campus humor magazine The Yale Record. Like his father, he became an attorney, graduating from the Harvard Law School. However by his mid-to-late 20s, he tired of his legal practice and turned a long term dream into a reality by becoming an actor on Broadway. He played lead roles in plays such as It Pays to Advertise, The Whole Town's Talking, The Champion, and The Baby Cyclone.
Grant Mitchell was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Phi chapter).

In film he initially made an appearance in 1916 and one or two other silents amidst his extensive theatre work but Mitchell's screen career really took off with the advent of sound. Most of his appearances were in B films of the 1930s and 1940s, but he made many notable appearances in high profile films such as A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935; Epheus), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939, Senator MacPherson), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942, Mr. Stanley), and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944, a Reverend).

He died a bachelor on May 1, 1957.