Born Isaiah Edwin Leopold in Philadelphia, PA. The son of European immigrants, he ran away from home at 15 to join a traveling stage company as a utility boy and eventually an actor. He returned home after the company's failure and sold hats for a living until his next adventure. This time he went to New York, where he became a successful vaudeville comic headliner before reaching 18. He appeared in several Ziegfeld Follies editions from 1914, billed as "The Perfect Fool," and got into a widely publicized feud with another headliner in the musical extravaganza, W.C. Fields. In 1919, at the height of his popularity as a Broadway comedy star, Wynn was boycotted by the Shuberts because of his part in organizing an actors' strike, which led to the formation of Actors' Equity Association. Undaunted, he wrote and produced his own shows, which enjoyed an enormous success in the 20s at the box office and with the critics. He also appeared in occasional films. In the 1930s, Wynn gained additional fans on radio, as the Texaco Fire Chief, but he fell on bad times toward the end of the decade, when several of his business ventures, including a radio chain, failed. He suffered a nervous collapse and his career seemed all but washed up. But in the 1940s he returned to Broadway and in 1949 won the first TV Emmy® Award as best actor in a series. He provided the voice (and likeness) of the Mad Hatter in Disney's ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1951). He was out of work again in the early 50s, when his traditional baggy pants comedy style was a thing of the past, but thanks to the encouragement and help of his son, Keenan Wynn (1916 - 1986), he entered films in the latter part of the decade as a dramatic character actor, and was nominated for an Oscar® as best supporting actor for his performance in THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK (1959). He appeared successfully in both serious and light films and in TV dramas (CINDERFELLA, 1960; THE ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR, 1961; BABES IN TOYLAND, 1961; MARY POPPINS, 1964, as Uncle Albert, the laughing man; DEAR BRIGITTE, THAT DARN CAT! and THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, all 1965; THE GNOME-MOBILE, 1967) until his death at the age of 80.    Nominated for Supporting Actor 1959: THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK 1 nomination