Percy Kilbride was a long-faced character actor, mostly playing country hicks. He is most memorable as Pa Kettle in the Ma and Pa Kettle series of films. His film debut was as Jakey in White Woman (1933), a Pre-Code film starring Carole Lombard. He was also in Jack Benny's film, George Washington Slept Here in 1942. In 1947, he and Marjorie Main appeared in The Egg and I, as the folksy Kettle neighbors of stars Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert, which led to the spinoff series of Ma and Pa Kettle films.