Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Benjamin Sherman "Scatman" Crothers (May 23, 1910 – November 22, 1986) was an American actor, singer, dancer and musician known for his work as Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man, and as Dick Hallorann in The Shining in 1980. He was also a prolific voiceover artist, and provided the voices of Meadowlark Lemon in the animated TV version of The Harlem Globetrotters, Jazz the Autobot in The Transformers, the title character in Hong Kong Ph...
Known For
Complete Filmography

Transformers: 40th Anniversary Event
2024
as Jazz (voice) (archive footage)
This special cinema experience takes audiences back to the very beginning as the original voice actors team up for the first time in decades to revisi...

Scooby-Doo! and the Pirates
2011
as (voice) (archive footage)
Splash into action with seafaring sleuths Scooby-Doo and the Mystery, Inc. gang as they collide with a mystery ship and try to uncover clues from a va...

Transformers: The Return of Optimus Prime
1987
as Jazz
When an alien plague turns Transformers into relentless destroyers, the universe's only hope lies in reviving Optimus Prime, who must unite with old e...

Rock Odyssey
1987
as Jukebox (voice)
The story of a mysterious woman named Laura, who embarks on a journey to find her true love. The movie's soundtrack is set to four decades of classic ...

The Transformers: The Movie
1986
as Jazz (voice)
The Autobots must stop a colossal planet-consuming robot who goes after the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. At the same time, they must defend themselve...

The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye
1986
as Jazz
The Autobots are running low on Energon, they leave their home planet of Cybertron to search for more sources. The Decepticons follow them and attack ...

The Journey of Natty Gann
1985
as Sherman
America is in the depths of the Great Depression. Families drift apart when faraway jobs beckon. A courageous young girl confronts overwhelming odds w...

Two of a Kind
1983
as Earl
God has had enough of the bad behavior and attitude of humankind, and has decided to start it all over. It is up to a struggling inventor and a bank t...

Twilight Zone: The Movie
1983
as Mr. Bloom
An anthology film presenting remakes of three episodes from the "Twilight Zone" TV series—"Kick the Can", "It's a Good Life" and "Nightmare at 20,000 ...
Grandpa, Will You Run with Me?
1983
as Self - Sketch Performer
A celebration of how the very young and the very old appreciate and enjoy each other via sketches and variety performances.

Missing Children: A Mother's Story
1982
as Mose Wheeler
A young mother hands her children into what she thinks is a childcare center while she finds a new home, but returns to find that they have been adopt...

Deadly Eyes
1982
as George Faskins
Corn grain contaminated with steroids produces large rats the size of small dogs who begin feeding on the residents of Toronto. Paul, a college basket...

Zapped!
1982
as Dexter Jones
Peyton and Barney are fun loving high school students working on a science project with white mice. When one of the mice begins to move food toward it...

Working
1982
as Parking Attendant
This musical adaptation of the Studs Terkel book examines the average worker's viewpoint--showing that he or she is anything but average. Based on a s...

The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island
1981
as Dewey Stevens
The Harlem Globetrotters' chartered plane crash lands on the atoll inhabited by the happily marooned Gilligan and fellow castaways, and they all must ...

Making 'The Shining'
1980
as Self
Directed and edited by Stanley Kubrick's daughter Vivian Kubrick, this film offers a look behind the scenes during the making of The Shining.

Bronco Billy
1980
as Doc Lynch
An idealistic, modern-day cowboy struggles to keep his Wild West show afloat in the face of hard luck and waning interest.

The Shining
1980
as Hallorann
Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest...

Scavenger Hunt
1979
as Sam
An eccentric games inventor dies and leaves behind an inheritance worth hundreds of millions of dollars - which will only be given to the person or te...

Banjo the Woodpile Cat
1979
as Crazy Legs (voice)
Banjo is a curious and rebellious kitten who is always getting into trouble. When he decides to jump off a roof of a chicken coup to see if he can lan...

NBC Salutes the 25th Anniversary of the Wonderful World of Disney
1978
as Self
Walt Disney Presents, Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, Disney’s Wonderful World, Walt Disney, The Disney Sunday Movie, The Magical World of Dis...

The Cheap Detective
1978
as Tinker
A spoof of the entire 1940s detective genre. San Francisco private detective, Lou Pekinpaugh is accused of murdering his partner at the instigation of...

Mean Dog Blues
1978
as Mudcat
A victim of circumstance, country and western musician Paul Ramsey finds himself on a Southern chain gang.

Silver Streak
1976
as Ralston
A somewhat daffy book editor on a rail trip from Los Angeles to Chicago thinks that he sees a murdered man thrown from the train. When he can find no ...

Chesty Anderson U.S. Navy
1976
as Ben Benson
When one of her friends goes missing, Chesty and several fellow WAVEs go looking for her and end up in a world of senatorial corruption and Mafia inti...

The Shootist
1976
as Moses
Afflicted with a terminal illness John Bernard Books, the last of the legendary gunfighters, quietly returns to Carson City for medical attention from...

Stay Hungry
1976
as William
A dishonest businessman asks rich layabout Craig Blake to help him buy a gym, which will be demolished for a development project in Alabama. But after...

Joys
1976
as Self
Over fifty of the greatest living comedians are called to a party at Bob Hope's house, where each of them is systematically killed (and their bodies t...

Friday Foster
1975
as Reverend Noble Franklin
Friday Foster, a magazine photographer, goes to Los Angeles International airport to photograph the arrival of Blake Tarr, the richest black man in Am...

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1975
as Orderly Turkle
A petty criminal fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than prison. He soon finds himself as a leader to the other patients—and...

Coonskin
1975
as Pappy / Old Man Bone (voice)
Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox rise to the top of the crime ranks in Harlem by going up against a con-man, a racist cop, and the Mafia...

Coonskin
1975
Songs
Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox rise to the top of the crime ranks in Harlem by going up against a con-man, a racist cop, and the Mafia...

Man on the Outside
1975
as Ruben Hammer
A retired police captain storms angrily out of retirement when his son is shot down before his eyes and his grandson is kidnapped by a syndicate kille...

The Fortune
1975
as Fisherman
Two bumbling hustlers in the 1920s attempt to gain the fortune of an heiress. Nothing will stop them, not even murder.

Linda Lovelace for President
1975
as Super Black
An intentionally campy film designed to capitalize on Linda Lovelace's sudden fame following "Deep Throat", this film centers around Linda's fictional...

Win, Place or Steal
1975
as Attendant
Three friends have two things in common: (1) they like to bet on the horses at the track, and (2) they invariably lose. One day they hit upon a scheme...

Truck Turner
1974
as Duke
Truck Turner and his partner Jerry, who make their living as bounty hunters in Los Angeles, are hired to hunt down Gator, a pimp who has skipped bail.

Sty of the Blind Pig
1974
as Doc
After moving to Chicago from the South just as the civil rights movement takes hold, the members of an African American family led by steely matriarch...

Black Belt Jones
1974
as Pop Byrd
Jones is a secret agent who has gone into semi-retirement, concentrating instead on teaching the martial arts to inner city youths. The karate school ...

Scooby-Doo! Meets the Harlem Globetrotters
1973
as (voices)
In yet another hilarious caper, Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and, of course, Scooby-Doo team up with the talented Harlem Globetrotters to solve a haunt...

Slaughter's Big Rip-Off
1973
as Cleveland
Vigilante Slaughter comes under attack from Duncan, a local money launderer whose hit-man traps Slaughter in a car at a cliff, but Slaughter escapes, ...

Detroit 9000
1973
as Reverend Markham
After a fundraiser for a black politician is robbed, Detroit police put two detectives, one white and one black, on the case, who try to work together...

The King of Marvin Gardens
1972
as Lewis
Jason Staebler lives on the Boardwalk and fronts for the local mob in Atlantic City. He is a dreamer who asks his brother David, a radio personality f...

Lady Sings the Blues
1972
as Big Ben
Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday, beginning with her traumatic youth. The story depicts her early attempts at a s...

The Lorax
1972
as Singer
The Once-ler, a ruined industrialist, tells the tale of his rise to wealth and subsequent fall, as he disregarded the warnings of a wise old forest cr...

Chandler
1971
as Smoke
A private eye is hired to follow a mobster's former mistress.

The Aristocats
1970
as Scat Cat (voice)
When Madame Adelaide Bonfamille leaves her fortune to Duchess and her children—Bonfamille’s beloved family of cats—the butler plots to steal the money...

The Great White Hope
1970
as Carnival Barker (uncredited)
A black champion boxer and his white female companion struggle to survive while the white boxing establishment looks for ways to knock him down.

Bloody Mama
1970
as Moses
Sexually abused as a young girl, Kate "Ma" Barker grows into a violent and powerful woman by the 1930s. She lovingly dominates her grown sons and groo...

Hello, Dolly!
1969
as Mr. Jones (Porter) (uncredited)
Dolly Levi is a strong-willed matchmaker who travels to Yonkers, New York in order to see the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace...

Hook, Line and Sinker
1969
as The Corpse (uncredited)
Told he is terminally ill, an insurance executive goes on a credit-card spending spree--and then learns his medical diagnosis was a mistake.

The Patsy
1964
as Shoeshine Boy
Eccentric bellhop Stanley Belt is recruited unexpectedly by the comedy team of a recently deceased entertainer. Stanley struggles to become a song-and...

Lady in a Cage
1964
as Mr. Paul's Assistant (uncredited)
A woman trapped in a home elevator is terrorized by a group of vicious hoodlums.

The Sins of Rachel Cade
1961
as Musinga
A female doctor in the Congo is torn between two loves.

Porgy and Bess
1959
as Crabman
In the early 1900s, the fictional Catfish Row section of Charleston, South Carolina serves as home to a black fishing community. Crippled beggar Porgy...

Alias Jesse James
1959
as Railroad Porter (uncredited)
Insurance salesman Milford Farnsworth sells a man a life policy only to discover that the man in question is the outlaw Jesse James. Milford is sent t...

Tarzan and the Trappers
1958
as Tyana
Tarzan goes up against a baddie by the name of Schroeder, who is trapping animals and selling them illegally to zoos. A twist is thrown into the plot ...

Tarzan and the Trappers
1958
as Tyana (as Sherman Crothers)
Tarzan goes up against a baddie by the name of Schroeder, who is trapping animals and selling them illegally to zoos. A twist is thrown into the plot ...

Between Heaven and Hell
1956
as George (uncredited)
Sam Gifford remembers : In prewar years he was an arrogant southern cotton plantation owner, married to the daughter of a colonel. At the beginning of...

Johnny Dark
1954
as Himself
A young auto racer competes in a Canada-to-Mexico race in a car he designed himself. Director George Sherman's 1954 film stars Tony Curtis, Piper Laur...

Walking My Baby Back Home
1953
as Smiley Gordon
A young man from a wealthy New York family pursues a career as the leader of a dance band.

East of Sumatra
1953
as Baltimore (as Scat Man Crothers)
Duke Mullane, manager of a Malayan tin mine, goes to a little-known island to open a new mine in the jungle. Initially, the natives there are friendly...

Meet Me at the Fair
1953
as Enoch Jones
In 1904, Doc Tilbee, medicine show huckster and champion tall-tale teller, gives a ride to a young boy escaped from an orphanage, where bad conditions...

Yes Sir, Mr. Bones
1951
as Scatman
A young boy finds himself in a home for retired minstrel acts. He's anxious to find out as much as he can about them, and flashbacks show what it was ...