A former child soprano, Burgess Meredith became a leading figure in American theater of the 1930s. He made his film debut reprising his stage triumph in "Winterset" (1936), in a role written for him by Maxwell Anderson. Versatile and highly accomplished, compact in size and with a boyish yet eccentric quality, Meredith had a prolific but uneven screen career, partly because producers were often unsure of how to best utilize his talents. He nonetheless gave an outstanding performance as George in "Of Mice and Men" (1939) and brought a sweet quality to his romantic scenes with Ginger Rogers in