SEAVIEW – Attention, movie fans. Do you recognize that handsome guy in the accompanying photograph? Here’s a clue or two or three:

You’d be more likely to remember him if you saw a lot of movies in the 1930s and ’40s. Or if you browse the old flick racks at the rental store, you might spot him there. In his time, peaking in the late 1930s, he was a famous character actor with a flock of movies to his credit.

Or, if you’re a real long-timer here on the Peninsula, you might recall seeing this celebrity in person in the summer or fall, riding around with another fellow in a nice car near the Seaview beach approach.

The driver probably was a local businessman named John G. (Jack) Williams, late uncle of the Williams brothers, Rod of Long Beach and Warner, now living in Portland. Or it might have been Jack’s brother Reece. Jack Williams owned two local movie theaters, one in Long Beach and the other in Ilwaco. Both local men became friends with the actor on his frequent vacation trips to the Peninsula.

(It is said that the actor was one of a number of celebrities who vacationed on the Peninsula, because they made friends here, liked the cool summer weather and the peace and quiet.)

Rod and Warner Williams gave me the idea for this story, having listened to tales told by their late uncles and having seen the famous actor once or twice around town when they were kids. Another person whose memories contributed greatly to this story is Mrs. Jane Hewitt of Seaview and Portland, whose parents owned a vacation rental, the Hewitt House, which is still owned by the Hewitt family, near the Seaview approach.

Give up on the guessing game? Well, the man’s name was Edward Everett Horton, one of the most famous character actors Hollywood ever created. Horton began his movie career after years of experience in summer stock plays. A veteran of nearly 150 motion pictures. Horton often vacationed here in between movie roles, to relax on the beaches, perhaps fish for salmon or dig for clams, escaping the bustle of tinsel town.

It was not uncommon back then for celebrities to travel here for a restful interval on the beaches, arriving by steamboat or ferry, or possibly flying in by way of a barnstormer’s airplane. Documenting their visits 50 or 60 years later is more difficult.

Files of the Chinook Observer and earlier Peninsula newspapers have produced stories about celebrities visiting locally, including mentions of Edward Everett Horton. The Peninsula was one of his favorite vacation spots.

For the most part Horton and the others weren’t looking for publicity or attention. But just imagine a motion picture actor, or maybe a singer, musician, vaudeville player or some other celeb, say, basking on the beach in the mid-1930s or later, hiding behind sun glasses, incognito if they preferred, just having a little restful R&R before returning to the grind.

Enter the Williams brothers, uncles to the Williams brothers of today. The Ilwaco theater was located near the intersection of Main Street and Lake Street. Reece Williams owned a gasoline station and automotive garage at the same intersection.

(I knew the approximate location of the Ilwaco theater. So while I was researching this story, and because of Jack Williams’ friendship with Horton, I wanted to pin down the theater’s exact location and maybe even find a photo. I did both. One stop at the Sea Hag tavern took care of it. The barmaid assured me that the theater was located right there – “you’re sitting in it” – and to seal the bargain she loaned me a theater photo hanging on the wall).

When Horton was visiting the Peninsula, the brothers would arrange for Horton to speak to local groups, civic clubs and women’s groups of one kind and another. Some say he gave theatrical performances locally, but that could not be confirmed. It seems likely, though, because Horton was a theatrical performer – “on the boards” in stock companies – before he turned to movies.

One of the brothers, and maybe both of them, liked to drive Horton around town when he was here. Warner Williams recalls meeting Horton as a youngster and taking a short walk with the actor.

“I was out cutting the grass one summer day at our house on K Place in Seaview,” Warner told me. “I was about 12 or 13 years old at the time. One of our uncles, either Jack or Reece and I can’t remember which, came driving by with someone I didn’t recognize in the car. It turned out to be Mr. Horton, and we went for a short walk while my uncle talked with my mother. I had never met Horton and didn’t know who he was until later.”

Warner Williams confessed that meeting the movie actor made more of an impression in later years than it did at the time.

It is not known for certain where Horton stayed during his local vacations. The Williams brothers of today, nephews of the men who knew the actor, don’t have the answer.

But the mystery, if there was one, was solved just recently by Mrs. Jane Hewitt of Seaview and Portland. Her parents operated a vacation rental which is still owned by the Hewitt family, and Jane spent her summers on the Peninsula. Because of a teenage prank during one of Horton’s visits, Jane Hewitt is quite sure she knows where he stayed because she and her young friends tracked him down.

First Mrs. Hewitt and a group of her pals found out that Edward Everett Horton was in town. That was just before they watched a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie at the Ilwaco theater in the summer of 1937. Mrs. Hewitt thinks the movie likely was Shall We Dance? – one of three films Horton made with Astaire and Rogers. Jane Hewitt’s eyes shone as she related the events of that evening:

“In the movie Mr. Horton left a note for Astaire that said: ‘If you get here before I do, I’m out looking for you.’ Well, we wanted to find Horton, the famous movie star, and we heard he was staying at Mrs. L. C. Coulter’s cottages, near the kite museum in Long Beach. He was friends with a fellow named Jack Coulter, probably Mrs. Coulter’s son, and Horton often brought his mother to visit with her.

“We went up to the cottages after the show but Horton wasn’t there. So we got the idea of leaving him a note, just like in the movie.’If you get here before I do’ and so forth. Horton returned after a bit, got a big laugh from the note and talked with all of us.

“He was very friendly and gracious to a bunch of teenagers. He posed for pictures – one of my friends had a camera – and we took quite a few snapshots.”

Jane Hewitt remembers someone’s Model-T Ford parked nearby, and Horton posed for the camera cranking the old Ford. Fortunately Mrs. Hewitt saved copies of all those photographs, framed on the wall at the Seaview house, and some of them now illustrate today’s story.

She also remembers one other chance meeting with Horton, many years later when she worked at Portland radio station KGW.

“Mr. Horton was at the station on business and made a point of stopping in the offices to say hello to everyone,” Jane Hewitt said. “I told him that we had met at Long Beach 20 years before, and about the movie note, and he enjoyed that.”

Earlier in this story we told of brief mentions of Edward Everett Horton in local newspaper files of an earlier day. Here are a few examples:

“Edward Everett Horton, of Hollywood movie acting fame, is a two-week guest at Long Beach. Mr. Horton is well known to the movie fans of Ilwaco as he has been shown here in the front page story and other films. Taking advantage of the occasion, Manager Strauhal has ordered the picture To the Ladies in which he is starred and will show it on Tuesday night with Mr. Horton appearing in person on the stage.”

“Beach rides aboard a rented bronc, saltwater taffy and sea shells from a curio shop on the beach approach. All linger in the memory of visitors. So, too, does hanging around waiting for the afternoon train to come to see who got off, this newspaper reported.

“Sometimes it’s a celebrity. One such was the beach’s favorite movie star in the 1920s,’30s and’40s, Edward Everett Horton, that lanky, blithering character actor who appeared in so many films that today we still recognize him. He came (to the beach) regularly.”

One year, the news item continued, some local supporter of the Boy Scouts wrote to him asking for a donation. “Mr. Horton kindly responded with $25.” (a generous donation in those days.)

Although top billing and stardom proved beyond his reach, Horton was known for a flawless sense of timing and his portrayals of jittery, addle-brained fussbudgets. He once told an interviewer: “I have my own little kingdom. I do parts no one else wants and I get well paid for them.”

Horton never took his film work seriously but regarded it as a profitable sideline. At the height of his career in the 1930s, he made nearly $5,000 a week. Added to income from summer stock and tour appearances, his earnings equaled that of many stars.

In 1925 Horton and his brother built a large estate on 22 acres in California’s San Femando Valley. An elaborate Colonial home had 17 rooms and an extensive collection of antique furniture and books. His two brothers and their families lived in elaborate guesthouses on the estate, and his mother, and later, his widowed sister lived with him.

Edward Everett Horton died of cancer on Sept. 29, 1970, in Encino, Calif., at the age of 84.