Pawnbroker | pawnbroker |
His first significant film role was an uncredited appearance in the 1964 film The Pawnbroker (starring Rod Steiger), in which he played a junkie trying to sell a radio to the title character (using anti-Semitic slurs to no effect).
The Pawnbroker's Shop that has been reconstructed at Black Country Living Museum is one of a pair of cottages built in the 1840s, from School Lane in Himley.
Because of the general illiteracy of the populace, early store owners used descriptive emblems or figures to advertise their shops' wares; for example, barber poles advertise barber shops, show globes advertised apothecaries and the three gold balls represent pawn shops.
Greer was a heavy drinker, as well as a pool-hall hustler (when he needed to retrieve his drums from the pawnbroker), and in 1950 Ellington responded to his drinking and occasional unreliability by taking a second drummer, Butch Ballard, with them on a tour of Scandinavia.