Charles Middleton (1874-1949) played Ming the Merciless in the three movie serials: Flash Gordon, Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. Middleton began his long career in stage musicals before moving to Hollywood, where he had roles in almost two hundred films and serials. He appeared as a scowling antagonist in four Laurel and Hardy films—the shorts Beau Hunks (1931, as a Foreign Legion commandant) and The Fixer-Uppers (1935, an insanely jealous French husband), and the features Pack Up Your Troubles (1932, an enraged Welfare Association official) and The Flying Deuces (1939, again as an angry Foreign Legion commandant). Middleton also played the prosecutor in the 1933 Marx Brothers film, Duck Soup.