[2] His father was of English and German ancestry, and his mother was born in Matanzas Province, Cuba, to George and Mary (née Orr) Diack, natives of Scotland.

He was asked to leave after he climbed to the top of a building and, after a crowd gathered, threw off a dummy, making them think he had jumped.

Returning to New York City, he attended the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn for one year, until the school discontinued its arts courses; he moved to Columbia University, "until I got fouled up with The Varsity Show of 1909.

As a stage-trained performer, he found more film work easily and appeared in several Warner Bros. movies, including The Terror (1928) and Sonny Boy (1929).

In Horton's version, he smiled ingratiatingly and nodded in agreement with what just happened; then, when realization set in, his facial features collapsed entirely into a sober, troubled mask.

[8] Horton starred in many comedy features in the 1930s, usually playing a mousy fellow who put up with domestic or professional problems to a certain point and then finally asserted himself for a happy ending.

In 1953, Horton announced on the ABC-TV game show The Name's the Same that his next picture would be one of the Ma and Pa Kettle comedies.

A scheduling conflict compelled Horton to bow out, and his role in Ma and Pa Kettle at Home was played by Alan Mowbray.

Horton wanted to rejoin Capra, but had a commitment to finish a stage run of the play Once Upon a Mattress; the show wouldn't be closing for another two weeks.

In late 1963 Edward Everett Horton joined the national touring company of the Broadway hit A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, alongside co-stars Jerry Lester, Arnold Stang, and Erik Rhodes.

He remains, however, best known to younger Saturday-morning-television viewers of the "baby boomers" generation (born after World War II era, 1946-1964) as the venerable narrator of Fractured Fairy Tales segments with the retelling of earlier famous fairy tales and legends from previous centuries on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show animation / cartoon program (1959–1961),[11] an American animated / cartoon television series that originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964.

This spoof Western / U.S. Cavalry comedy series set after the American Civil War era also starring troopers Forrest Tucker, Ken Berry and Larry Storch at fictional Fort Courage.

"[6] Horton died of cancer on September 29, 1970, at age 84 in the Encino area of Los Angeles, and his remains were interred in the Whispering Pines section of Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.

[12] At the time of his death, Horton had lived on the property at 5521 Amestoy Avenue for 45 years, since purchasing the four-acre estate in 1925 which he named Belleigh Acres.