Henry Travers

For me, Henry Travers is forever Clarence the guardian angel in It's a Wonderful Life, and that one role says everything about why he mattered. He spent a long career playing the bumbling, warm, slightly fussy older man, and he did it so convincingly that audiences trusted him instantly. There's a craft in being that reliably likeable on screen, and as an English stage-trained character actor he brought a theatrical precision to it. I find it fitting that his most enduring work came late in life, in a film that itself became immortal. He's the kind of supporting player who quietly anchors a whole movie.

Travers John Heagerty (5 March 1874 – 18 October 1965), known professionally as Henry Travers, was an English film and stage character actor who specialised in portraying slightly bumbling but amiable and likeable older men. His best known role to today's audiences was the guardian angel Clarence Odbody in the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Name (English)

Henry Travers

Name (Japanese)

ヘンリー・トラヴァース

Reading

へんりー・とらゔぁーす

Born

March 5, 1874 – October 18, 1965

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Pisces / Dog

Origin

Berwick-upon-Tweed, United Kingdom

Blood type

Private

Height

164 cm

Agency

Private

Occupation

film actor / stage actor / actor

Elementary school

Private

Junior high

Private

High school

Private

University

Private

Spouse

Private

Children

Private

Parents

Private

Siblings

Private

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%98%E3%83%B3%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%BB%E3%83%88%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A1%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B9

Tags

• film actor
• stage actor
• actor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.