<P> Mitchell's breakthrough role was as the embezzler in Frank Capra's film Lost Horizon (1937). </P> <P> Following this performance, he was much in demand in Hollywood . That same year, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Hurricane, directed by John Ford . </P> <P> Over the next few years, Mitchell appeared in many significant films . Forty - three of the fifty - nine films in which he acted, were made in the 10 - year period from 1936--1946 . Considered one of the finest character actors in film, in 1939 alone he had key roles in Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Only Angels Have Wings, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Gone with the Wind . While probably better remembered as Scarlett O'Hara's loving but doomed father in Gone with the Wind, it was for his performance as the drunken Doc Boone in Stagecoach, co-starring John Wayne (in Wayne's breakthrough role), that Mitchell won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award . In his acceptance speech, he quipped, "I didn't know I was that good". Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Mitchell acted in a wide variety of roles in productions such as 1940's Swiss Family Robinson, 1942's Moontide, 1944's The Keys of the Kingdom (as an atheist doctor) and High Noon (1952) as the town mayor . He is probably best known to audiences today for his role as sad sack Uncle Billy in Capra's Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946) with James Stewart . </P> <P> From the 1950s and into the early 1960s, Mitchell worked primarily in television, appearing in a variety of roles in some of the most well - regarded early series of the era, including Playhouse 90, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater (in a pilot episode that became the CBS series Johnny Ringo), and Hallmark Hall of Fame productions . In 1954, he starred in the television version of the radio program, Mayor of the Town . In 1955, he played Kris Kringle in The 20th Century - Fox Hour version of The Miracle on 34th Street opposite Teresa Wright and MacDonald Carey . In 1957 he hosted The O. Henry Playhouse . In 1959, he starred in thirty - nine episodes of the syndicated television series, Glencannon, which had aired two years earlier in the United Kingdom . </P>

Who played scarlett o'hara father in gone with the wind
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