Natural around Elizabeth, New Jersey, Mitchell began his film career in 1923, & went in to turn into one of a screen's virtually all successful character actors. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Stagecoach (1939), an Emmy Award as the Better Actor of 1953, & the Tony Award in 1953 for the musical Hazell Flagg (based on a Carole Lombard film Nothing Sacred)

He is too remembered when Scarlett's father, Gerald O'Hara within Gone with the Wind (1939).

Another notability films where he appeared include Theodora Goes Wild (1936), Lost Horizon (1937), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Only Angels Have Wings (all in 1939), The Long Voyage Home (1940), Our Town (1940), The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), Wilson (1944), The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), ''It's a Wonderful Life (1946), and High Noon'' (1952).

In the early 1960s, he originated the stage role of "Colombo," late manufactured illustrious in television by Peter Falk. Thomas Mitchell passed away inside 1962 from cancer in Beverly Hills, California. He was cremated & his ashes stored in a vault at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles.

Thomas Mitchell has ii stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for Motion Pictures at 1651 Vine St, and for television at 6100 Hollywood Boulevard.