Charles Ellsworth "Charley" Grapewin (December 20, 1869 – February 2, 1956) was an American vaudeville performer, writer and a stage and silent and sound actor, and comedian who portrayed Aunt Em's husband, Uncle Henry in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's The Wizard of Oz (1939) in grayscale and black-and-white, as well as Jeeter Lester in the film version of Tobacco Road and Grandpa Joad in the film The Grapes of Wrath (1940). He usually portrayed elderly folksy-type characters in a rustic setting, in all appearing in over 100 films.

Biography

Born in Xenia, Ohio, Charles Ellsworth Grapewin ran away from home to be a circus acrobat which led him to work as an aerialist and trapeze artist in a traveling circus before turning to acting. He traveled all over the world with the famous P. T. Barnum circus. Interestingly, Grapewin also appeared in the original 1903 Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz, 35 years before he would appear in the famous Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film version.

After this he continued in theatre, on and off stage, for the next thirty years, starting with various stock companies, and wrote stage plays as a vehicle for himself. His sole Broadway theatre credit was the short-lived play It's Up to You John Henry in 1905.