Posted on 01/07/2026 12:54:58 PM PST by lowbridge
Sidney Kibrick, who portrayed the bad boy known as “Woim” in Our Gang comedy film shorts in the 1930s, has died. He was 97.
Kibrick died Saturday at a hospital in Northridge, his daughter, Jane Lipsic, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Kibrick appeared in about two dozen Our Gang/Little Rascals films, made at Hal Roach Studios and/or MGM, from 1935-39. As Woim — that’s Brooklynese for “worm” — he was the henchkid for the neighborhood bully Butch (Tommy Bond).
It was a grind making those shorts, he told Nick Thomas in a 2023 interview. “We’d have two hours of schooling in the morning and then work anywhere from six to 16 hours until we finished,” he said. “There was a lot of work, no question about it, but our director Gordon Douglas was a terrific guy, and he was really able to get a lot out of each kid.”
-snip
The youngest of three kids, Sidney Henry Kibrick was born in Minneapolis on July 2, 1928. He came to Los Angeles as an infant with his family.
“My mother took us to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and after the movie, a man came over to us, pointed at me and said he could ‘use that little kid in the movies,’” Kibrick recalled. His parents really wanted him and his brother to get into acting.
The boys got started in 1933, appearing in Raoul Walsh’s The Bowery (1933), starring Wallace Beery, George Raft and Jackie Cooper. Leonard, who was about four years older than Sidney, appeared in his first Our Gang film in 1934 (he died in 1993 at age 68).
Kibrick said he was earning $750 a week for the shorts, “a lot in those days, especially during the Depression,” he told Thomas.
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
During the 1930s and early 1940s, these were my favorite movies...
We did odd jobs to earn the dime to buy a ticket to see the movie on Saturdays, right before the week’s Captain Midnight movie serial...
You must be referring to Eugene Lee who was Porky in the series. He worked as an Educator in Colorado.
I think hes just mistaken. As i understand it, Spanky, the top star of the series, was getting paid about $150 a week.
Honestly Ive read many times of people in show biz back in the twenties and thirties making that kind of dough (and in the case of adults twice that). It always struck me as strangely generous. When you consider though how cheap entertainment was and how popular, it starts to make a little sense. Those Pennie’s added up.
That was him. He was also a ventriloquist and kind of magician and comedian.
We all got off the road for a while and it was kinda crowded and he happened to be there and lighten things up.
Seems a little high.
As a kid with a brand new associates degree in 1970, I was making a whopping $5500 a year, and compared to my previous jobs, didn’t know how to spend all that money. ;~)).
He and I share the same birthday only he was 26 years my senior. RIP, you Rascal….
Huntz Hall from the Bowery Boys (Dead End Kids) invested well.
He owned 10% of the Bowery Boys pictures plus Hall made some wise oil and gas investments that paid off.
According to Huntz’s son, thats just a bunch of nonsense. His father made that all up. He never owned 10% of the bowery boys films and he never invested in oil or gas.
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