Gunsmoke Guests
Actors who made the most guest appearances on Gunsmoke
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- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
Victor French was the son of a stuntman. His debut was a small role in Lassie (1954), uncredited. He had his first real acting experiences in western-films, where he usually played the "bad guy" due to his rather gruff look. This changed with Little House on the Prairie (1974), (as Isaiah Edwards). In 1977, he left Little House on the Prairie (1974) to play in his own sitcom Carter Country (1977), which lasted for two seasons. French then teamed up again with Michael Landon in Highway to Heaven (1984), as (Mark Gordon). French, along with Leonard Nimoy, founded LA's "Company of Angels", one of the area's earliest attempts to establish LA as a type of "Off-Broadway-West Coast". Its limited seating arrangement (99 seats) served as the prototype of LA's Equity-Waiver code. After he left the company in the mid 1970s, he went on to teach acting privately. He was well sought-after, and it became apparent that he had to take students on "by referral only". His philosophy and style was gentle and encouraging to young actors just entering the field. He directed in LA Theaters and won the Critics Circle Award for "12 Angry Men." In the 1980s, he declined to play "bad guys." Victor French died 1989 after finishing the last episode of Highway to Heaven (1984).- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
This country singing-and-playing perennial earned the nickname of "Shug" early in life from his mother, who used to call him "sugar" as an infant. The native Oklahoman was born George Clinton Fisher in 1907, the son of a Scots-Irish father and part Choctaw mother. He learned how to play the mandolin, fiddle and guitar by the time he went on the road and later added comedy schtick to his traveling act. He finally took the plunge and headed west to California toiling in a series of side jobs (oil field cabler, tool dresser) before getting some work on radio. He joined various country groups, including the "Hollywood Hillbillies," in which he played bass fiddle, and the "Beverly Hill Billies." He finally found "gold up in them thar hills" saddling up with Roy Rogers in his western films and singing with the renown group "Sons of the Pioneers."
On various radio broadcasts with the group, Shug's talents soon included songwriting. Some of his songs included "Out on the Open Range" and "Ridin' Down to Santa Fe," tunes later recorded by such established stars as Merle Travis. Shug first joined the Sons of the Pioneers in 1943 as a bass player and comedian and appearing on their Lucky U Ranch radio program. He also performed with Stuart Hamblen's "Lucky Stars" and partnered on and off with singer/actor/comedian Pat Brady. Following his break with the Pioneers, he worked with pre-Festus actor Ken Curtis (of "Gunsmoke" fame) in movies and on TV and radio. He returned once more with the Sons of the Pioneers (1955-1959), then went on to appear with Red Foley's and his Ozark Jubilee TV show for a couple of years.
Shug continued on as various character types on TV and enjoyed a regular role with friend Curtis on the Ripcord (1961) adventure series. He also is remembered for his recurring role as Shorty Kellums on The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), and appeared in several films and TV episodes for Walt Disney in later years. He died in March 1984 after a lingering illness, with old friend Ken Curtis by his side.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Craggy-faced, athletic veteran character actor who played hard-bitten or menacing types in numerous westerns and crime dramas. One of five brothers, Woodward grew up in Arlington, Texas. He had a keen interest in aviation early on and took flying lessons from 1941, getting his pilot's license and subsequently served in both World War II (Army Air Corps) and Korea (Military Air Transport Command). Woodward first acted at Arlington State College, majoring in music and drama. He appeared for a while with the Margo Jones Repertory Theatre '47 in Dallas and then went back to study for a degree in corporate finance at the University of Texas, graduating in 1948. At one time, he sang with a jazz band and as a member of a barber shop quartet as well as having a regular weekly gig as a talk show host on local radio. Possessed of a powerful bass-baritone voice, Woodward's ultimate ambition had been to sing for the Metropolitan Opera. That didn't pan out. Neither did his hope that moving to Hollywood in 1955 might open the door to a career in musicals. Instead, he successfully auditioned at Disney for The Great Locomotive Chase (1956), followed by a part in the western pioneer saga Westward Ho, the Wagons! (1956). His first big break was as co-star opposite Hugh O'Brian in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955), playing the role of Earp's deputy Shotgun Gibbs for four seasons. This effectively typecast him as a western genre actor with a record number of guest spots on Gunsmoke (1955) and Wagon Train (1957). Nonetheless, his most famous role was that of ""the man with no eyes", a sinister chain gang overseer in Cool Hand Luke (1967), distinguished by perpetually wearing reflective sunglasses. He also made two appearances on Star Trek (1966) (most famously as Simon Van Gelder, the first human with whom Spock 'mind melds') and played the shrewd Armani-suited oil tycoon Punk Anderson in 55 episodes of Dallas (1978).
Thomas Morgan Woodward was awarded the Golden Boot Award from the Hollywood Motion Picture and Television Fund in August 1988. In 2009, he became an inductee into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Privately, he was a respected authority on Early American Aircraft. According to his website, his main hobby was "restoring, rebuilding and flying antique airplanes".- Actor
- Soundtrack
Colorful American character actor equally adept at vicious killers or grizzled sidekicks. As a child he worked in the cotton fields. He attended Santa Monica Junior College in California and subsequently became an accountant and, at one time, manager of the Bel Air Hotel. Elam got his first movie job by trading his accounting services for a role. In short time he became one of the most memorable supporting players in Hollywood, thanks not only to his near-demented screen persona but also to an out-of-kilter left eye, sightless from a childhood fight. He appeared with great aplomb in Westerns and gangster films alike, and in later years played to wonderful effect in comedic roles.- Norwegian by heritage and a San Franciscan by birth, brown-haired, brown-eyed Gregg Palmer (born Palmer Lee) broke into show biz as a radio announcer. After an early '50s stint as a contract player at Universal, he turned to freelancing, closing out the decade by starring and co-starring in a number of detective, Western and sci-fi adventures. In the '60s, Palmer drifted into supporting roles and much TV work, and reinforced his growing rep with Western fans by becoming a regular member of John Wayne's latter-day stock company.
- Lew Brown was born on 18 March 1925 in Goltry, Oklahoma, USA. He was an actor, known for Airport (1970), Topaz (1969) and Days of Our Lives (1965). He was married to Toby Adler. He died on 27 July 2014 in La Jolla, San Diego, California, USA.
- Fred Coby was born on 1 March 1916 in Glenbrook, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Government Agents vs Phantom Legion (1951), Jungle Goddess (1948) and Laramie (1959). He died on 27 September 1970 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Gaunt, emaciated-looking American character actor, typically cast as sneering, psychotic western gunslingers or henchmen. Born Roy Eugene Baker, he was billed as 'Roye Baker' in his motion picture debut as Lloyd Barker (1896-1949), a member of Ma Barker's Killer Brood (1960) (the infamous Barker-Karpis Gang). Though he originally hailed from Oklahoma, Holman's family settled in southern California during the depression era. He was educated at Pierce Junior College in Woodland Hills and found his way to acting via an acquaintance, beginning his career in college and community theatre and summer stock. He was also at one time employed by a Hollywood film editing company.
Between 1960 and 1979, Holman made numerous guest appearances in TV westerns (invariably as vicious, snarky outlaws), racking up the most credits in Gunsmoke (1955), The Virginian (1962), The Big Valley (1965), Wagon Train (1957) and Rawhide (1959). Fans of Star Trek (1966) will also remember him as Morgan Earp in the episode 'Spectre of the Gun' and as J'Onn, one of Sybok's disciples in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). His other forays into the science fiction genre include The Twilight Zone (1959), The Outer Limits (1963) and Land of the Giants (1968). In popular crime and espionage-themed series, he was similarly cast as callous or shifty types with names like Tiger, Evil Face, Oregano, Snake and Angel. As in the westerns, most of his characters ended up the worse for wear (usually afflicted by 'lead poisoning') by the end of the episode.
In 1959, Holman declared his hobbies to be flamenco guitar playing and dancing. He retired from acting in 1989 after reputedly investing wisely in real estate.- Actor
- Soundtrack
For more than three decades Hollywood defaulted to a small core group of actors when it came to casting convincing mobsters, gamblers and racketeers. These often typecast individuals included Joseph Ruskin, Bruce Gordon, Neville Brand, Robert Loggia and...Anthony Caruso. Square-jawed, broad-shouldered and gravelly-voiced, Caruso provided a reliable source of menace and was amply utilised in films and in countless television episodes beginning in 1941.
The son of Italian-American parents, Caruso decided to forgo a career as an opera singer and instead took up acting with a stock company in Long Beach, California. A year later, in 1935, he joined the Pasadena Playhouse. He began in films as a bit player, commenting later that "MGM was the place to be, offering us extras a higher quality of lunch". In his first film, Johnny Apollo (1940), he played a henchman named Joe and there were to be many more of these to come with names like Fingers, Dapper Dan Greco, Chips Malloy, Pinky Luiz and Lucky Grillo. These dastardly nemeses came in a variety of ethnic types, ranging from Italians, Mexicans and Latinos to Greeks and Russians. A close personal friend of the actor Alan Ladd, Caruso featured in eleven of the star's films (the first as a hitman in Lucky Jordan (1942) ). In 1954, he became a member of Ladd's newly formed stock company, Jaguar Films. Whenever Caruso was not gleefully portraying underworld figures (The Iron Mistress (1952) , Hell on Frisco Bay (1955), The Asphalt Jungle (1950)) he was effectively employed as Native American chiefs (Drum Beat (1954), Cattle Queen of Montana (1954), The Lawless Eighties (1957)). On television, he had a popular recurring role as the charming but lethal Comanchero El Lobo on The High Chaparral (1967). Even on a planet (far, far away) in the Star Trek (1966) universe, Caruso -- as crime boss Bela Oxmyx -- was up to his old tricks using James T. & company to eliminate a rival gang and assume control of the government.
In stark contrast to his screen image, Caruso was the consummate family man in private life, happily married for 63 years, and enjoying the simple pleasures of gardening and cooking.- Actor
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
A rather wanderlust fellow before he latched onto acting, Denver Pyle--who made a career of playing drawling, somewhat slow Southern types--was actually born in Colorado in 1920, to a farming family. He attended a university for a time but dropped out to become a drummer. When that didn't pan out he drifted from job to job, doing everything from working the oil fields in Oklahoma to the shrimp boats in Texas. In 1940 he moseyed off to Los Angeles and briefly found employment as a (somewhat unlikely) NBC page. That particular career was interrupted by World War II, and Pyle enlisted in the navy. Wounded in the battle of Guadalcanal, he received a medical discharge in 1943. Working for an aircraft plant in Los Angeles as a riveter, the rangy actor was introduced to the entertainment field after receiving a role in an amateur theater production and getting spotted by a talent scout. Training with such renowned teachers as Maria Ouspenskaya and Michael Chekhov, he made his film debut in The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947). Pyle went on to roles in hundreds of film and TV parts, bringing a touch of Western authenticity to many of his roles. A minor villain or sidekick in the early 1950s, he often received no billing. Prematurely white-haired (a family trait), he became a familiar face on episodes of Gunsmoke (1955) and Bonanza (1959) and also developed a close association with actor John Wayne, appearing in many of Wayne's later films, including The Horse Soldiers (1959), The Alamo (1960), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and Cahill U.S. Marshal (1973). Pyle's more important movie roles came late in his career. One of his most memorable was in Bonnie and Clyde (1967) as Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, the handcuffed hostage of the duo, who spits in Bonnie's (Faye Dunaway) face after she coyly poses with him for a camera shot. He settled easily into hillbilly/mountain men types in his later years and became a household face for his crotchety presence in The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1977) and, especially, The Dukes of Hazzard (1979). He died of lung cancer at age 77.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Burly, handsome and rugged character actor John Crawford appeared in over 200 movies and TV shows combined in a career that spanned over 40 years, usually cast as tough and/or villainous characters.
Crawford was born Cleve Richardson on September 13, 1920, in Colfax, Washington. He was discovered by a Warner Bros. scout while attending the University of Washington's School of Drama. Although he failed his screen test, Crawford nonetheless joined RKO as a laborer. He then got a job building sets at Circle Theater in Los Angeles, and eventually persuaded the producers to cast him in some of their plays. He was soon signed to Columbia Pictures to act in secondary roles in westerns. In the late 1950s he graduated to bigger parts in such films as Orders to Kill (1958), The Key (1958) and Hell Is a City (1960), all of which were made in the UK. Crawford returned to America in the early 1960s and began a prolific career in both movies and TV series, up until 1986. His most memorable film roles include the ill-fated chief engineer in The Poseidon Adventure (1972), the hearty Tom Iverson in Night Moves (1975), the bumbling mayor of San Francisco in The Enforcer (1976), hard-nosed police chief Buzz Cavanaugh in Outlaw Blues (1977) and amiable old mine hand Brian Deerling in The Boogens (1981). John had recurring parts as Sheriff Ep Bridges in The Waltons (1972) and Capt. Parks on Police Woman (1974). Among the many TV shows he made guest appearances in are The Lone Ranger (1949), Adventures of Superman (1952), I Spy (1965), The Twilight Zone (1959), The Untouchables (1959), Wagon Train (1957), The Fugitive (1963), Star Trek (1966), Lost in Space (1965), Bonanza (1959), Hogan's Heroes (1965), Mission: Impossible (1966), Gunsmoke (1955), The Bionic Woman (1976), Dallas (1978) and Dynasty (1981). Crawford died at age 90 following complications from a stroke on September 21, 2010, in Thousand Oaks, California. He's survived by his ex-wife Ann Wakefield, four daughters and two grandchildren.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Tom Reese (real name: Tom Allen) was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on August 8, 1928; his father and uncle were country-western singers, "The Chattanooga Boys," traveling around performing their bluegrass music with the family, including Tom, in tow. Around 1940 the Allens relocated to New York, where Tom's dad supported the family working as a steelworker in the daytime and a singing waiter at night. Tom later held the expected assortment of odd jobs (Automat busboy, usher, etc.) in New York, and (starting at 17) served two tours of duty in the Marine Corps. He later studied dramatics at the American Theater Wing under the G.I. Bill and spent 15 years on the road working nightclubs (emceeing, doing stand-up, etc.). He studied with Lee Strasberg, did some work off-Broadway and in local TV shows and made his film bow in John Cassavetes' New York-made Shadows (1958). Cassavetes also had Reese fly out to Hollywood to play a part in an episode of his detective series Johnny Staccato (1959), Reese's Hollywood debut. He was ready to return to New York after doing the show but an agent signed him "and I've been here [California] ever since." His first major film was Flaming Star (1960), an Elvis Presley western and the start of Reese's long career in big- and small-screen oaters,including Gunsmoke (1955) Bonanza (1959), The Virginian (1962), Rawhide (1959), Branded (1965).- Jonathan Goldsmith was born on 26 September 1938 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018), Hang 'Em High (1968) and The Streets of San Francisco (1972). He has been married to Barbara Jacobson Buky since 2006. He was previously married to Betty Miller.
- Robert Sorrells was born on 29 June 1930 in Dallas, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Fletch (1985), Ensign O'Toole (1962) and The Phyllis Diller Show (1966). He died on 11 June 2019 in Vacaville, California, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
Steve Raines was born on 17 June 1916 in Grants Pass, Oregon, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Rawhide (1959), The High Chaparral (1967) and Sheriff of Wichita (1949). He was married to Sally Jean Durkus. He died on 4 January 1996 in Grants Pass, Oregon, USA.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Bill Erwin was born on 2 December 1914 in Honey Grove, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), Somewhere in Time (1980) and Home Alone (1990). He was married to Lucy Frances MacLachlan. He died on 29 December 2010 in Studio City, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Stunts
Stuntman and actor Troy Melton was born on March 2, 1921 in Jackson, Tennessee. Melton migrated with his family to Los Angeles, California during the Great Depression. Following service in the Army Air Corps during World War II, Troy returned to Los Angeles and found sporadic work as an actor before his career as a stuntman took off in the late 1940's. One of the founding members of the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures, Melton's career as an actor and stuntman spanned a little over forty years. Among the notable actors that Troy doubled for are Roy Rogers, Kent Taylor, Gregory Walcott, Richard Webb, and Duncan Renaldo. Moreover, Melton was also an avid golfer and owner of the Playboy Restaurant on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood (he eventually sold said restaurant in 1988). Troy died at age 74 from cancer on November 15, 1995 in Los Angeles, California.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Royal Dano was undoubtedly one of the best, most quirky and striking character actors to ever grace the big and small screen alike in a lengthy and impressive career which spanned 42 years.
Royal Edward Dano was born on November 16, 1922 in New York City, to Mary Josephine (O'Connor) and Caleb Edward Dano, a newspaper printer. He was of mostly Irish descent (his mother was an immigrant). Royal ran away from home at age twelve and lived in such states as Texas, Florida and California. He struck a deal with his father to continue his education, but still be able to travel around the country. Dano eventually attended New York University. His performing career began as part of the 44th Special Service Provisional Company during World War II. Dano soon branched out to the New York stage and made his Broadway debut with a small role in the hit musical "Finian's Rainbow." He was nominated by the New York Critic's Circle as one of the Promising Actors of 1949. Tall and lean, with a gaunt face, dark hair, a rangy build, and a very distinctive deep croaky voice, Dano was usually cast in both movies and TV shows as gloomy and/or sinister characters. He appeared most often in westerns and worked several times with James Stewart and director Anthony Mann. He made his film debut in Undercover Girl (1950). Dano's more memorable roles include the Tattered Soldier in The Red Badge of Courage (1951), a sickly bookworm bad guy in Johnny Guitar (1954), Elijah in Moby Dick (1956), Peter in King of Kings (1961), a cattle rustler in The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972), a coroner in Electra Glide in Blue (1973), a profanity-spewing preacher in Big Bad Mama (1974), Ten Spot in The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), a weary factory line worker in Take This Job and Shove It (1981), a lightening rod salesman in Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), a caterwauling minister who showed up at the doors of newly widowed wives of test pilots, and sang "Eternal Father Strong To Save" in The Right Stuff (1983). He was a stuffy high school teacher in Teachers (1984), rascally zombie old-timer Gramps in House II: The Second Story (1987), a cantankerous farmer in Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988), and in his last part, a cemetery caretaker in George A. Romero's The Dark Half (1993). Among the numerous TV shows Dano did guest spots on are Twin Peaks (1990), Amazing Stories (1985), CHiPs (1977), Quincy M.E. (1976), Fantasy Island (1977), Little House on the Prairie (1974), Kung Fu (1972), Ben Casey (1961), Planet of the Apes (1974), Cannon (1971), Playhouse 90 (1956), Lost in Space (1965), Gunsmoke (1955), Bonanza (1959), Wagon Train (1957), The Virginian (1962), Hawaii Five-O (1968), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958), Night Gallery (1969), Route 66 (1960), The Rifleman (1958), and Rawhide (1959). Moreover, Dano did the voice of the animatronic Abraham Lincoln for Walt Disney's Hall of Presidents for both Disneyland and Disney World. Dano also portrayed Lincoln on the Omnibus (1952) television series. He's the father of actor Rick Dano. Royal Dano died at age 71 of a heart attack on May 15th, 1994.- Lane Bradford was born on 29 August 1922 in Yonkers, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952), The Invisible Monster (1950) and The Toughest Gun in Tombstone (1958). He was married to Joan Irene Velin and Mary Schrock. He died on 7 June 1973 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
- Dennis Cross was born on 17 December 1924 in Whitefish, Montana, USA. He was an actor, known for Mission: Impossible (1966), The Blue Angels (1960) and Mrs. Pollifax-Spy (1971). He was married to Rita Jezelle Lecomte. He died on 6 April 1991 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Mills Watson was born on 10 July 1940 in Oakland, California, USA. He is an actor, known for Cujo (1983), Up in Smoke (1978) and The Six Million Dollar Man (1974). He is married to Sue. He was previously married to Caroline Mary Mason.
- Ken Mayer was born on 25 June 1918 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Little Big Man (1970), Space Patrol (1950) and Jack the Giant Killer (1962). He died on 30 January 1985 in North Hollywood, California, USA.
- Actor
- Animation Department
- Soundtrack
He had one of Hollywood's most distinctive faces and a stentorian baritone voice to match. Character actor John Dehner, was born John Forkum in Staten Island, New York, the son of a globe-trotting artist. He attended school in France and Norway, in the process learning to speak four languages fluently. Back in the U.S., he graduated from high school in New York and proceeded to study for a diploma in art at the University of California. Any plans he might have had of following in his father's footsteps were derailed, however, when the acting bug suddenly took hold. In short order, the cash-strapped Dehner relocated to sunny California in search of a job. He worked for a while as a professional pianist and band leader but was then able to finagle a position as an assistant animator with Disney Studios for a salary of $18 a week. Dehner had a hand in several classic feature sequences, including Fantasia (1940) and Bambi (1942), as well as a few Donald Duck and Pluto cartoons. He returned to Disney in later years as a narrator and also played the part of Viceroy Don Esteban in an episode of the TV series Zorro (1957).
After leaving the Disney art department, Dehner did a stint as a public relations officer in the army during World War II and then returned to California as a radio announcer and news editor for stations KMBC and KFWB. In the course of many years, Dehner amassed a remarkable series of radio acting credits, most notably starring as Paladin in "Have Gun - Will Travel" and in similarly popular action programs like "Gunsmoke" and "Fort Laramie" (this, in spite of turning down several offers to play Marshall Matt Dillon on TV because he did not want to be typecast in westerns!). In films from the mid-40s, Dehner served a lengthy apprenticeship in assorted bit parts before graduating as one of Hollywood's most reliable villains, be they suave gamblers, crooked bankers, grifters or gunslingers. Just as often, his authoritarian demeanor proved perfect casting for stern fathers, military brass or cops. In The Left Handed Gun (1958), Dehner received second billing as Pat Garrett, co-starring opposite Paul Newman's Billy the Kid. On the small screen, he invariably made an impact as guest star in myriad classic TV shows, including Yancy Derringer (1958), Tales of Wells Fargo (1957), The Roaring 20's (1960), Maverick (1957), Bronco (1958), 77 Sunset Strip (1958), Rawhide (1959) and The Doris Day Show (1968) (a regular part during seasons four and five, as Doris's editor Cy Bennett). Dehner appeared in three episodes of The Twilight Zone (1959), reserving one of his best performances (displaying a wonderfully dry comic talent) as the titular huckster in late 1800s Arizona, in the episode "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" (1963).
One of Hollywood's most hard-working character actors, John Dehner died in Santa Barbara, California, on February 4 at the age of 76.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Harry Carey, Jr., had been reliable character actor for decades, mostly in Westerns, before he retired. He is the son of the actor Harry Carey and the actress Olive Carey. He was born on his parents' 1000-acre ranch near Saugus, in the northwestern part of Los Angeles County, which is now next door to Santa Clarita, a large town that certainly did not exist in 1947 or for decades longer. Thus, the young Harry Carey, Jr., grew up among cattle and horses at the ranch. Because of a large group of Navajo Indians who worked on his parents' ranch, he learned to speak the Navajo language at the same time that he was learning to speak English.
During World War II, Carey enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and he served in the Pacific Theater first as a Navy medical corpsman. However, he was transferred back to the United States (against his wishes) to serve under his father's good friend, the director John Ford, in making movies for the Navy (training films)and the O.S.S. (propaganda films).
After World War II ended, Carey tried to make a career in singing, but he was not successful at this. Hence, he moved into acting, and after a couple of small acting parts, he was given a chance to work in a motion picture with his father, the John Wayne film Red River (1948). (However, the father and the son did not have any scenes with one another). After the death of Harry Carey, Sr., in 1946, Mr. Ford gave the younger Carey a leading role in the movie that Ford dedicated to the memory of Harry Carey, Sr., in 1948, 3 Godfathers (1948).
As a full-fledged member of the noted John Ford Stock Company, Carey, Jr., appeared in many of Mr. Ford's epic Westerns during the following two decades. Carey also starred in a series-within-a-series on TV, The Adventures of Spin and Marty (1955), which was shown as a part of The Mickey Mouse Club (1955). Very boyish looks characterized Carey's early years, but he matured into a strong and familiar character actor over the following four decades, and he acted in scores of films and TV programs in his long career. Carey, Jr., is married to Marilyn Fix Carey, the daughter of the actor Paul Fix.- If ever there was an actor born to play a tough Irish cop, it was Ken Lynch, and he played so many of them in his long career that he could probably do it in his sleep. His suspicious manner, aggressive attitude, steely eyes and snarling voice broke down many a quavering suspect. He also played military officers, business executives and private eyes, and every so often he'd be a sheriff in a western, but it was as a street cop or detective that most people remember him.
Born in Albany, NY, he started his acting career in radio dramas, and after gaining experience there he headed to Los Angeles, making his film debut in 1950. He appeared in quite a few movies over his career, but he also did an enormous amount of television work, and that's where most probably remember seeing him, as he turned up on pretty much every cop show, detective show and private-eye series ever made (he even showed up in an episode of the Jackie Gleason comedy series The Honeymooners (1955)--as a tough Irish detective!).
He died in 1990 in Burbank, CA. - Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Soundtrack
A tall, sinewy, austere-looking character actor with silver hair, rugged features and a distinctive voice, John Robert Anderson appeared in hundreds of films and television episodes. Immensely versatile, he was at his best submerging himself in the role of historical figures (he impersonated Abraham Lincoln three times and twice baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, men whom he strongly resembled). He was a familiar presence in westerns and science-fiction serials, usually as upstanding, dignified and generally benign citizens (a rare exception was his Ebonite interrogator in The Outer Limits (1963) episode "Nightmare"). He had a high opinion of Rod Serling and was proud to be featured in four episodes of The Twilight Zone (1959), most memorably as the tuxedo-clad angel Gabriel in "A Passage for Trumpet" (doing for Jack Klugman what Henry Travers did for James Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life (1946)).
Known to other youths as 'J.R.', Anderson had a happy childhood, growing up first on a small farm near Clayton, Illinois, and then in the mid-sized town of Quincy where his mother operated a cigar stand. A rangy, outdoorsy type, he excelled at various sports, was a drum major, a member of the track team and the Boy Scouts. During World War II, he served in the Coast Guard, mainly involved in helping protect convoys from U-boat attacks. In 1946, he commenced studies at the University of Iowa, eventually graduating with a Master's degree in Drama. His acting career began on the riverboat 'Goldenrod' (now the oldest surviving Mississippi River Basin showboat in America) and proceeded from there to the Cleveland Playhouse for a year, then the New York stage and summer stock with parts in prestigious plays like "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Home of the Brave". He also occasionally doubled up as a singer on Broadway ("Paint Your Wagon" (1951), "The Emperor's Clothes" (1953)).
Anderson began as a regular television actor during that medium's formative years. In the course of the next four decades, his appearance barely changing, he was consistently excellent wherever he popped up, be it as western lawmen (including a recurring role as Virgil Earp in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955)), as cops, governors, judges and army officers; hard-nosed oil executive Herbert Styles in Dallas (1978), or as kindly patriarch of the Hazard clan in North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985). Though less traveled on the big screen, Anderson was particularly impressive as the furtive second-hand car dealer, 'California Charlie', in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), the ruthless leader of the renegades, Addis, in Day of the Evil Gun (1968) and, reprising his role as Lincoln, in The Lincoln Conspiracy (1977). One of the best all-rounders in the business, Anderson died of a heart attack at his home in Sherman Oaks in August 1992, aged 69.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Ken Swofford was born on 25 July 1933 in Du Quoin, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Annie (1982), The Andromeda Strain (1971) and Black Roses (1988). He was married to Barbara Ann Biggs. He died on 1 November 2018 in Pacific Grove, California, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Warren Vanders was born on 23 May 1930 in San Fernando, California, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Touched (2006), Combat! (1962) and Dallas (1978). He was married to Dawn Bender. He died on 27 November 2009 in Pasadena, California, USA.- John Pickard was born on 25 June 1913 in Lascassas, Tennessee, USA. He was an actor, known for True Grit (1969), The Twilight Zone (1959) and The Time Tunnel (1966). He was married to Anne Bernard McLaurine. He died on 4 August 1993 in Rutherford County, Tennessee, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Kelton Garwood was born in Columbus, Ohio on May 21, 1928. He went to Ohio State University, and appeared in plays and worked as a magician. He studied acting at American Theatre Wing in New York. Later he took riding lessons so that he could work in Westerns. He appeared in a few films including Miracle of the Hills (1959), Story of Ruth (1960), The Sandpiper (1966), and his last film, Return to Snowy River(1988). Unfortunately, all his roles were small and he is most known for his memorable performance as "The Hobo" in The Twilight Zone Episode: "Five Characters In Search Of An Exit".- Actor
- Soundtrack
American character actor who achieved considerable fame in the last decade of his life. A native of Kokomo, Indiana, Strother Martin Jr. was the youngest of three children of Strother Douglas Martin, a machinist, and Ethel Dunlap Martin. His family moved soon after his birth to San Antonio, Texas, but quickly returned to Indiana. Strother Jr. grew up in Indianapolis and in Cloverdale, Indiana. He excelled at swimming and diving, and at 17 won the National Junior Springboard Diving Championship. He attended the University of Michigan as diving team member. He served in the U.S. Navy as a swimming instructor in World War II. Nicknamed "T-Bone" Martin for his diving style, his 3rd place finish in the adult National Springboard Diving Championships cost him a place on the 1948 Olympic team. He moved to California to become an actor, but worked in odd jobs and as a swimming instructor to Marion Davies and the children of Charles Chaplin. He found work as a swimming extra in several films and as a leprechaun on a local children's TV show, "Mabel's Fables." Bit parts came his way, leading to television work with Sam Peckinpah, which led to a lifelong relationship. He also found memorable roles for John Ford and by the 1960s was a familiar face in American movies. With Cool Hand Luke (1967) in 1967 came new acclaim and a place among the busiest character actors in Hollywood. He worked steadily and in substantial roles throughout the 1970s and seemed at the peak of his career when he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1980.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Ben Wright was born May 5, 1915, to an English mother and an American father in London, England, UK. At 16, he entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts where classmates included such future stars as Ida Lupino. Upon graduating, he acted in several West End stage productions. When WWII broke out, he enlisted and served in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps. He came to America in 1946 to attend a cousin's wedding and settled in Hollywood. He began his American acting career in radio, establishing himself as a master of dialects with such roles as Hey Boy, the Chinese servant, on "Have Gun, Will Travel" with John Dehner. His talent for dialects also kept him busy in the many WWII-related films and TV shows of the 1950s and '60s wherein he played countless Germans and Frenchmen as well as a variety of Englishmen for which he ensured the dialects were accurate depending on which part of England they were from. After years of radio, TV, stage and film work, he entered semi-retirement in the late 1970s, accepting occasional voice work and small guest appearances on TV. On June 16, 1989, after completing his last role, providing the voice of Grimsby in Disney's The Little Mermaid (1989), he entered St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank for quadruple bypass surgery from which he never recovered. He died of heart failure July 2, 1989.- Rayford Barnes was born on 23 October 1920 in near Whitesboro, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for The Wild Bunch (1969), Death Hunt (1981) and Young Jesse James (1960). He was married to Debra ?. He died on 11 November 2000 in Santa Monica, California, USA.
- Tall, rangy Jim Davis spent much of his early career in westerns mainly at Republic Pictures. The Missouri-born and -raised Davis' relaxed, easygoing manner and Southern drawl easily fit most moviegoers' image of the cowboy and Republic put him in a ton of them over the years (the fact that, unlike a lot of movie cowboys, he looked right at home on a horse didn't hurt, either). He alternated between good-guy and villain roles, one of his better ones being that of the devious, murderous fur trapper working for Kirk Douglas' competition in The Big Sky (1952). He is best known, however, for his role as Ewing family patriarch Jock in the long-running TV series Dallas (1978).
- Robert Karnes was born on 19 June 1917 in Watsonville, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Rocky King, Detective (1950), Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948) and Police Story (1973). He was married to Doris Karnes. He died on 4 December 1979 in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Oglala Lakota, born Edsel Wallace Little Sky on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota. Eddie served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific theatre during World War II. Tall (at 6 ft, 2") and muscular, he was subsequently employed as an oil field wildcatter and then toured the rodeo circuit with Casey Tibbs' American Wild West Show & Rodeo as a bull and bareback bronco rider. He entered films as a stuntman in the early 50s. By the middle of the decade, Eddie was playing Native American chiefs and braves and eventually amassed a portfolio of more than 60 film credits and numerous TV episodes -- often as a featured player rather than a mere extra. Among his better known roles was that of Black Eagle in A Man Called Horse (1970). Eddie and his wife Dawn Little Sky moved to Los Angeles in 1959, but they never regarded this as their true 'home'. "Phasing out the Hollywood era", as Dawn called it, they returned to South Dakota in 1975 whereupon Eddie worked as director of the Oglala Lakota Tribal Parks and Recreation Authority. Both Eddie and Dawn were also well known for their accomplishments as exponents of traditional dance, having toured both Europe and Japan and performed before royalty.- Actor
- Writer
Veteran writer/actor/filmmaker "Charlie" Kuenstle was active in the industry from the early '60s thru the early '80s. Born in Chicago, besides the city streets, he grew up in Phoenix, and Houston where he attended high school. After High School he attended the famous Baylor Experiment Theater as an undergraduate, attended the New York Actor's studio in the early '60, and attended the UCLA film school. After a stint in the Army and working for the USIS, he abandoned his Hollywood career to raise a family and operate an import/export business in Thousand Oaks, Ca. where he presently resides. In 2007 he returned to marketing and promote his own films by establishing his own creative production company, Ventura Films, located in Westlake, Ca. Several of his active films and literary projects include "Dark Passage", a historical book & TV series,"Richard Redux", a sword & sandles feature about the real Richard III portrayed as an English "People's" revolutionary, "Stars & Stripes" an action adventure comedy about a wayward band of GIs on a mission in Mexico in 1917; and "Biker Babes from Uranus" a comedy-satire projected to be filmed in New Mexico for a pending budget of $100m.- Eddie Firestone was born on 11 December 1920 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Duel (1971), The Untouchables (1959) and The Great Locomotive Chase (1956). He was married to Mary Jean Sisich. He died on 1 March 2007 in Sherman Oaks, California, USA.
- Script and Continuity Department
- Additional Crew
- Actor
Born and raised in Minneapolis, Lloyd Nelson also went to radio school there. He worked at a few stations in the mid-south and in the Twin Cities market before he was drafted; he later (1953) came out to Hollywood using the G.I. Bill to attend the Pasadena Playhouse. He made his movie debut in a small, uncredited role in "The Court Jester" (1956); producer-director Jerry Warren later saw him in a little theater production and gave him one of the starring roles in "Man Beast" (1956), Nelson's first of several Warren movies. (Because "Man Beast" was non-union, Nelson used the nom de screen "Lloyd Cameron.") The Pasadena Playhouse helped him get him a job as dialogue coach on the TV series "Lassie"; he coached child star Jon Provost, who (according to Nelson) couldn't read. During his long run on "Lassie," Nelson learned the duties of a script supervisor and switched over to that profession. After he retired from script supervising, he went through the police academy and became a reserve cop. ("Strictly administrative, believe me. I could no more do a foot chase than climb Mount Everest!")- Roy Engel was born on 13 September 1913 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952), The Man from Planet X (1951) and Rogue River (1951). He died on 29 December 1980 in Burbank, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Broad-shouldered and beefy Claude Akins had wavy black hair, a deep booming voice and was equally adept at playing sneering cowardly villains as he was at portraying hard-nosed cops. The son of a police officer, Akins never seemed short of work and appeared in nearly 100 films and 180+ TV episodes in a career spanning over 40 years. He originally attended Northwestern University, and went on to serve with the US Army Signal Corps in World War II in Burma and the Phillipines. Upon returning, he reignited his interest in art and drama and first appeared in front of the camera in 1953 in From Here to Eternity (1953). He quickly began notching up roles in such TV shows as Dragnet (1951), My Friend Flicka (1955), Gunsmoke (1955) and Zane Grey Theatre (1956). He also turned in several strong cinematic performances, such as gunfighter Joe Burdette in the landmark western Rio Bravo (1959), Mack in the excellent The Defiant Ones (1958), Sgt. Kolwicz in Merrill's Marauders (1962) and Earl Sylvester in the gripping The Killers (1964). In the early 1970s Akins turned up in several supernatural TV films playing "no-nonsense" sheriffs in both The Night Stalker (1972) and The Norliss Tapes (1973), and was unrecognizable underneath his simian make-up as war-mongering Gen. Aldo in Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973). Akins continued starring in films and TV right up until the time of his death from cancer in 1994. By all reports a very gregarious, likable and friendly person off screen, Akins was married for over 40 years to Theresa "Pie" Fairfield, and had three children, Claude Marion Jr., Michele & Wendy.- Actor
- Music Department
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Warren Oates was an American character actor of the 1960s and 1970s and early 1980s whose distinctive style and intensity brought him to offbeat leading roles.
Oates was born in Depoy, a very small Kentucky town. He was the son of Sarah Alice (Mercer) and Bayless Earle Oates, a general store owner. He attended high school in Louisville, continuing on to the University of Louisville and military service with the U.S. Marines.
In college he became interested in the theatre and in 1954 headed for New York to make his mark as an actor. However, his first real job in television was, as it had been for James Dean before him, testing the contest gags on the game show Beat the Clock (1950). He did numerous menial jobs while auditioning, including serving as the hat-check man at the nightclub "21".
By 1957 he had begun appearing in live dramas such as Studio One (1948), but Oates' rural drawl seemed more fitted for the Westerns that were proliferating on the big screen at the time, so he moved to Hollywood and immediately stared getting steady work as an increasingly prominent supporting player, often as either craven or vicious types. With his role as one of the Hammond brothers in the Sam Peckinpah masterpiece Ride the High Country (1962), Oates found a niche both as an actor and as a colleague of one of the most distinguished and distinctive directors of the period. Peckinpah used Oates repeatedly, and Oates, in large part due to the prominence given him by Peckinpah, became one of those rare character actors whose name and face is as familiar as those of many leading stars. He began to play roles which, while still character parts, were also leads, particularly in cult hits like Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974).
Although never destined to be a traditional leading man, Oates remained one of Hollywood's most valued and in-demand character players up until his sudden death from a heart attack on April 3, 1982 at the age of 53. His final two films, Tough Enough (1983) (filmed in early 1981) and Blue Thunder (1983) (filmed in late 1981), were released over one year after his death and were dedicated to his memory.- William Bramley was born on 18 April 1928 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for West Side Story (1961), Star Trek (1966) and The Outer Limits (1963). He was married to Annie C Hanks. He died on 27 October 1985 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.
- Garry Walberg was born on 10 June 1921 in Buffalo, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Quincy M.E. (1976), King Kong (1976) and Johnny Staccato (1959). He was married to Florence M Apostol, Patsy Collett and Betty Jean Horner. He died on 27 March 2012 in Northridge, California, USA.
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- Soundtrack
Harry Bartell was born on 28 November 1913 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He was an actor, known for Dragnet (1951), I Love Lucy (1951) and The Adventures of Jim Bowie (1956). He died on 26 February 2004 in Ashland, Oregon, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Don Keefer was born on 18 August 1916 in Highspire, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Twilight Zone (1959) and Death of a Salesman (1951). He was married to Catherine McLeod. He died on 7 September 2014 in Sherman Oaks, California, USA.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Gene Evans was born in Holbrook, Arizona, on July 11, 1922, and was raised in Colton, California. He served in the Army during World War II as a combat engineer, and was awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for bravery in action. He began his acting career there, performing in a theatrical troupe of GIs in Europe. After the war, he went to Hollywood, where he made his film debut in 1947's Under Colorado Skies (1947). The rugged, red-headed character actor was a familiar face in such westerns as Cattle Queen of Montana (1954), The War Wagon (1967), Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973). He also starred in the war films The Steel Helmet (1951) and Fixed Bayonets! (1951) and co-starred with future first lady Nancy Reagan (before she became Nancy Reagan) in Donovan's Brain (1953). His other major films include Park Row (1952), The Giant Behemoth (1959), Operation Petticoat (1959) and Walking Tall (1973). He became well known in the 1950s on television, playing the father in My Friend Flicka (1955). He remained active in films and television through the 1980s. Evans subsequently retired to a farm near Jackson, Tennessee. He was a popular guest at the Memphis Film Festival for the past decade.- Sam Melville was born on 20 August 1936 in Fillmore, Utah, USA. He was an actor, known for The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Big Wednesday (1978) and Scarecrow and Mrs. King (1983). He was married to Anne Melville and Patricia Ann Horsley. He died on 9 March 1989 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Ollie O'Toole was born on 2 April 1912 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for The Oregon Trail (1959), Mission: Impossible (1966) and Young Jesse James (1960). He was married to Mildred L. O'Toole. He died on 25 February 1992 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Brawny Read Lawrence Morgan spent two years as an undergraduate at the University of Kentucky where he acquitted himself as a star baseball player for the Kentucky Wildcats. He then became heavily involved with bodybuilding, undertook further studies at Northwestern University and served for two years with the U.S. Air Force. Featured in the spreads of several high profile magazines, Morgan had established something of a tough guy image by the time he appeared as a rugged mountaineer in L'il Abner on Broadway. This duly led to his screen debut in 1949 where his muscular physique henceforth ensured a steady and lucrative employment as a character actor in innumerable TV episodes, playing stalwart soldiers and lawmen, hard-bitten westerners or athletes. His best-known role was as the eye-patch wearing U.S. Cavalry Sergeant Hapgood Tasker in NBC's The Deputy (1959). Morgan also appeared multiple times as different characters in Laramie (1959), Gunsmoke (1955), Police Woman (1974), Barnaby Jones (1973) and Lou Grant (1977). He was invariably cast in smaller roles on the big screen, beginning with the Shirley MacLaine-David Niven comedy Ask Any Girl (1959) and ending with a bit part as a card dealer in Maverick (1994) which also heralded his retirement from acting.
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Gilman Rankin was born on 17 April 1911 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), Midnight Cowboy (1969) and The Power of the Resurrection (1958). He died on 31 October 1993 in Orange County, California, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Michael Hinn was born on 10 September 1913 in Field Township, Minnesota, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Reivers (1969), Ben Casey (1961) and Johnny Ringo (1959). He was married to Helen. He died on 2 July 1988 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Allen Jaffe was born on 9 April 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Papillon (1973), Circle of Fear (1972) and The Outer Limits (1963). He was married to Jeri K. Decker. He died on 18 March 1989 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
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Veteran Polish-born character actor Ned Glass grew up in New York. After working in vaudeville he started acting in small parts on Broadway from the early 1930s. He gained further experience in the capacity of theatrical production supervisor before entering motion pictures in 1937 as an MGM contract player. Until the mid-1950s he was seen primarily in tiny supporting roles as clerks, reporters, bank tellers and small-time managers. His career was briefly put on hold after being blacklisted during the McCarthy era, but, with help from friends like John Houseman and Moe Howard (of The Three Stooges fame) he managed to get enough film work to make ends meet.
By 1953, Ned began to find a new lease of life in television where his roles were more varied and substantial. This afforded him the opportunity to fully develop his screen persona: that of the balding, weedy, perpetually nervy conman or weaselly stooge, often delivering barbed repartee or wisecracks in a heavy Brooklyn accent. Ned was at his best in comedy, put to good use in several episodes of Jackie Gleason's The Honeymooners (1955), and adapting well to anything else with a New York theme, from Kojak (1973) to Barney Miller (1975). He had many other good guest-starring roles on television, including several shifty characters in The Untouchables (1959), and as Freddie the Forger in Get Smart (1965) ('Do I Hear a Vaults?',1970). He was twice nominated for Emmy Awards, first for an episode of Julia (1968) (as Sol Cooper); the second time for Bridget Loves Bernie (1972) (Uncle Moe Plotnick).
From the time he played Doc in West Side Story (1961), Ned also began to land some meatier roles on the big screen, including the character of Popcorn in Experiment in Terror (1962), and as Doc Schindler, in one of the funniest 60's comedies, The Fortune Cookie (1966), directed by Billy Wilder. His best portrayal was that of the wily Leonard Gideon, sharpest of the villainous trio (the others being James Coburn and George Kennedy) on the trail of a quarter of a million dollar loot in gold, in the Hitchcockian thriller Charade (1963).
Ned continued playing crusty reprobates in films and on television, his last being a small-time thief in an episode of Cagney & Lacey (1981). He died two years later in Encino, California, at the age of 78.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Of Swedish descent, burly, light-haired character actor Karl Swenson was born in Brooklyn and started his four-decade career on radio. Throughout the late 30s and 40s, his voice could be heard all over the airwaves, appearing in scores of daytime serials ("Lorenzo Jones") and mystery dramas ("Inner Sanctum Mysteries"). He gave visual life to one of his serial characters, Walter Manning, in "Portia Faces Life" when it went to TV in 1953. It was during his lengthy work in this medium that he met his wife, stage and radio actress Joan Tompkins. They appeared together throughout their careers on TV and in a few films. In the 1950s, he kept afloat on TV in rugged guest spots (Dr. Kildare (1961), Gunsmoke (1955), Maverick (1957), Mission: Impossible (1966) and Hawaii Five-O (1968)). He didn't appear in films until age 50+ with minor roles in Kings Go Forth (1958), North to Alaska (1960), The Birds (1963) and The Sons of Katie Elder (1965). His voice was also well utilized in such animated features as The Sword in the Stone (1963) as the voice of Merlin. Karl met actor Michael Landon on the set of Bonanza (1959), appearing in four separate episodes over time. Landon remembered him when he began to film Little House on the Prairie (1974). Cast in the recurring role of lumber mill owner Lars Hanson, he remained with the show until his death in 1978 of a heart attack. His character on the show also died.- American character actor specializing in villainous roles. Born in White Plains, New York to Herman E. and Franceska Lauter, he was raised in Denver, Colorado. Although it has been suggested that he appeared briefly in a couple of films during the Thirties, his real movie career began in 1946. He came to be a familiar presence in low-budget films, serials, and television programs in the 1950s, though he only once really came close to stardom, as one of the leads in the television series Tales of the Texas Rangers (1955). Most of his career was spent as a serviceable second lead or heavy, though he continued to play bit parts in larger pictures. The son of an artist, he devoted much of his energy late in life to his own painting and running an art gallery. He died in 1990.
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- Writer
Born by the Atlantic Ocean, Jeremy Slate also had a Pacific Ocean view when he lived in Malibu, California. In between oceans he has traveled the world.
He attended a military academy, joined the US Navy at 16 and was barely 18 when his destroyer joined the invasion of Normandy on D-Day (June 6, 1944). Aboard that destroyer at Omaha Beach that day, he vowed if he survived the attack he would make his life a never-ending series of adventures. He has lived up to that promise with adventures as a lifeguard, a swimming instructor, the first person to swim across the Long Island Sound after the war, college graduate with honors in English, writer, songwriter, screenwriter, a radio announcer, actor and director.
After the war he attended St. Lawrence University, graduating with honors. He was president of the student body, editor of the college literary magazine, a football player and backfield coach of the only undefeated freshman team in the school's history. A campus radio personality in his senior year, he married the queen of his fraternity's ball. Chosen for the school's honor society, he was a big man on campus. After graduating, he became a professional radio sportscaster and DJ for CBS and ABC affiliates while beginning a family that ultimately included three sons and two daughters, but unfortunately the marriage ended in divorce.
As a young man with a growing family, he had a promising career as a public relations executive with W.R. Grace and Co. For six years he worked for Grace as travel manager for its president, Peter Grace. He then joined the Grace Steamship Line and moved with his family to Lima, Peru.
While in Peru he joined a professional theater group and became involved with the production of "The Rainmaker" at the Professional English Language Theater in Lima. He was awarded the Tiahuanacothe, the Peruvian equivalent of the Tony award, for his portrayal of the character Starbuck. After a year of training, he left W.R. Grace to pursue a theatrical career and was cast in a small, significant role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "Look Homeward, Angel" on Broadway and did 254 performances.
Known as one of the more talented members of Hollywood's beach boy set of the 1960s, Slate sent feminine hearts aflutter as the star of the 1960 TV series The Aquanauts (1960). His career included numerous guest-starring roles in popular television programs of the 1950s and 1960s. He guest-starred in nearly 100 television shows as well as appearing in 20 feature films.
While about half of his portrayals have been heavies, Jeremy is equally adept at comedy and has worked with some of Hollywood's best. He was punched out by Elvis Presley in Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), Frankie Avalon broke a guitar over his head in I'll Take Sweden (1965), he was knocked silly by Van Johnson in Wives and Lovers (1963), was shot by John Wayne in True Grit (1969), died spectacularly while trying to save the Duke's life in The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), was shot between the eyes by Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin in The Born Losers (1967) and went up in flames in The Lawnmower Man (1992). Jeremy wrote the screen story for Hell's Angels '69 (1969). During the filming of this biker film (which he described as a "western on wheels") he broke his leg, and never rode a motorcycle again.
An accomplished country-and-western songwriter and a BMI member, Jeremy wrote the lyrics to the Tex Ritter top-ten song "Just Beyond the Moon" and also wrote the lyrics for "Every Time I Itch (I Wind Up Scratchin' You)" recorded by Glen Campbell on Capitol Records.
Jeremy Slate died on November 19, 2006, from complications following surgery for esophageal cancer.- A familiar face to movie audiences in the 1950s, James Anderson's rugged and somewhat sinister good looks made him a natural for westerns, and he appeared in many of them over the years, often as a gunman or hired killer but occasionally as a storekeeper or grizzled frontier scout. He turned in a very good performance as one of the survivors of a nuclear attack in Five (1951) and another as a redneck farmer in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), but it's for his western roles in films and on TV that Anderson is best known.
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John McLiam was born on 24 January 1918 in Hayter, Alberta, Canada. He was an actor and writer, known for First Blood (1982), In Cold Blood (1967) and Sleeper (1973). He was married to Roberta Claire Robinson. He died on 16 April 1994 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- "Doc T". as he was known, was a Ph.D., and Professor of Theatre at Michigan State University in the early 1940s, just before World War II. He often spoke about leaving academia and actually trying his hand at the craft he taught. After the war, he got his chance and never looked back.
- Don Megowan was born on 24 May 1922 in Inglewood, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Creation of the Humanoids (1962), The Werewolf (1956) and Blazing Saddles (1974). He was married to Alva Megowan and Betty Eleanor Wright. He died on 26 June 1981 in Panorama City, California, USA.
- James Almanzar was born on 7 October 1934 in Las Vegas, New Mexico, USA. He was an actor, known for The Black Cauldron (1985), The Spy in the Green Hat (1967) and Charro! (1969). He died on 9 June 2002 in Arcadia, California, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Perennial film western heavy I. Stanford Jolley could be spotted anywhere and everywhere in dusty "B" fare from 1935 on. Often mustachioed, this freelancing, wideset-eyed, black-hatted villain, who showed up in Hollywood following vaudeville and Broadway experience, could be counted on to give the sagebrush hero a devil of a time before the film's end.
Born on October 24, 1900, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and raised in nearby Morristown, Jolley was nicknamed "Ike" (short for his given name "Isaac") by his parents but "Stan" by his friends. Of French and English descent, his entertainment-minded father, Robert B. Jolley, at one time owned and operated a traveling circus and carnival before becoming a successful restaurateur and opening an electrical contracting service. Jolley worked at his father's electrical store following high school for a time but then drifted around for a few years while searching for a passionate direction in life.
Around the time he married Emily Hacker in 1921, he took an interest in performing and started in vaudeville for both the B.F. Keith and Marcus Loew circuits. He also performed on stage and in stock shows, which led to a role as a blind man on Broadway in "Humoresque" in 1926. His father's death interrupted his acting pursuits, and he returned home to New Jersey in 1929 in order to handle the family's business affairs when the Great Depression brought his father's company to virtual bankruptcy.
In 1935, Jolley took a chance and moved his family (which now included two children) out west in order to reignite his acting career. His raw, sunken-cheeked, cold-eyed features seemed ideal for westerns and he found initial work in the genre in extra parts, wherein he learned how to ride horses on the spot. Although one of his first bits was in the Bette Davis drama Front Page Woman (1935), it wasn't long before he was firmly entrenched in oaters, playing uncredited bits throughout the rest of the 1930s. Slowly but surely he transitioned to featured roles in the WWII era, playing a reliable adversary to such cowboy heroes as Ray Corrigan in Trail of the Silver Spurs (1941) and Boot Hill Bandits (1942); Tom Keene in Arizona Roundup (1942); George Houston in Border Roundup (1942) and Outlaws of Boulder Pass (1942); Robert Livingston in Death Rides the Plains (1943) and Wolves of the Range (1943); Russell Hayden in Frontier Law (1943); Buster Crabbe in the western serial Blazing Frontier (1943), The Kid Rides Again (1943), and Lightning Raiders (1945)_; Dave O'Brien in Return of the Rangers (1943) and Outlaw Roundup (1944); and Tex Ritter in Oklahoma Raiders (1944), Gangsters of the Frontier (1944), and The Whispering Skull (1944).
Jolley's array of gunslingers, henchmen, and outlaws continued into the postwar years, but he wasn't completely confined to westerns. He also made appearances in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) starring Errol Flynn and Bette Davis, The Ape (1940) with Boris Karloff (in which Jolley's little boy Stan Jolley appeared as an extra in a soda shop), Corregidor (1943) with Otto Kruger, the serial Batman (1943), Charlie Chan in the Chinese Cat (1944) with Sidney Toler, The Desert Hawk (1944) with Gilbert Roland, The Crimson Ghost (1946), the serials King of the Rocket Men (1949) and Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere (1951), Joan of Arc (1948) with Ingrid Bergman, and Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) with John Wayne.
Come the 1950s, however, Jolley was almost completely confined in films and on TV to the western genre. On the small screen he became a familiar nemesis to "The Lone Ranger" and also played guest villain to "Annie Oakley," "Hopalong Cassidy, "The Cisco Kid," "Kit Carson," "Cheyenne" and "Daniel Boone". Jolley's baritone voice was also used on radio for such shows as The Lux Radio Theatre. He continued to act past age 70, including in his last film, Night of the Lepus (1972), directed partly by his son Stan Jolley, who also became an Oscar-nominated art director.
The heavy-smoking character actor was diagnosed with emphysema in his final years and died of the respiratory illness on December 6, 1978, at the Motion Picture and TV Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.- Dan Ferrone was born on 10 September 1937 in Newton, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for The Magical World of Disney (1954), Appointment with Destiny (1971) and NBC Children's Theatre (1963). He died on 10 September 1999 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- George Keymas was born on 18 November 1925 in Springfield, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for The Twilight Zone (1959), Apache Warrior (1957) and Playhouse 90 (1956). He was married to Karen A Keymas. He died on 17 January 2008 in Palm Beach, Florida, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Dorothy Neumann was born on 26 January 1914 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Undead (1957), The Ten Commandments (1956) and Hot Rod Gang (1958). She died on 20 May 1994 in Santa Monica, California, USA.- Additional Crew
- Stunts
- Actor
- Stunts
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- Actor
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Jack Perkins was born on 19 September 1921 in Medford, Wisconsin, USA. He was an actor, known for What's Up, Doc? (1972), Nickelodeon (1976) and Fuzz (1972). He was married to Ruth Cora Aldrich. He died on 7 March 1998 in Van Nuys, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born in 1911, Jeanette Nolan began her acting career in the Pasadena Community Playhouse. While still a student at Los Angeles City College, she made her radio debut in 1932, aged 20, in "Omar Khayyam", the first transcontinental broadcast from station KHJ. Her film debut was probably also her best part: Lady Macbeth opposite director/actor Orson Welles's Macbeth (1948). Her final film role was as Tom Booker (Robert Redford)'s mother, Ellen Booker, in The Horse Whisperer (1998).
She appeared in more than 300 television shows, including episode roles in Perry Mason (1957), I Spy (1965), MacGyver (1985), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), and as a regular on The Richard Boone Show (1963) and The Virginian (1962). She received four Emmy nominations.
Nolan died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, in 1998, aged 86, following a stroke.- Philadelphia native Malcolm Atterbury was born into a wealthy family - his father was president of the Pennsylvania Railroad - but he himself had no desire to go into the family business. He had always wanted to be an actor, and to that end got himself a job managing a radio station. From there he went into vaudeville, then into stage work in both musicals and dramas, gaining a reputation as a solid and reliable stage actor. He made his film debut in Dragnet (1954). Although he soon became a busy supporting actor in films, he still kept his hand in the theater world; he owned two theaters in upstate New York. A versatile actor, he could play anything from a priest to a senator to a hotel clerk to a gunfighter to a cranky, cantankerous old codger. His last film was Emperor of the North (1973). He died in Beverly Hills of old age in 1992.
- Prolific supporting actor, arguably best known for his two guest appearances on Rod Serling 's The Twilight Zone (1959). In one of his later roles he played the chimpanzee veterinarian Dr. Galen in Planet of the Apes (1968) which was also co-scripted by Serling. Wright King studied drama at the St Louis School of Theater, graduating in 1941. During the Second World War he served for three years with the U.S.Navy, stationed in the South Pacific. After being honorably discharged he continued his drama studies in New York at the Actors Studio and at the American Theatre Wing. He did not make his screen debut until 1949. A string of walk-on parts was followed by a critically acclaimed supporting role in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire (1947-49) as well as in the subsequent motion picture. King enjoyed a lengthy career, featuring in stage plays on both sides of the Atlantic and popping up in numerous television episodes (especially westerns). In one season of Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958) he played the sidekick of bounty hunter Josh Randall, played by Steve McQueen (1960) .
A close friend of Eileen Heckart until her death in 2001, King left the acting profession in 1987. With his wife June, he retired to Portland, Oregon. More recently, he resided in Woodland Hills, California, where he died at the venerable age of 95 on November 25 2018. His son is actor Meegan King . - Actress
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Red-haired Jacqueline Sue Scott began her career in show biz as a three-year-old by winning a tap-dancing contest. Though she once self-deprecatingly described herself as "the worst child tap dancer ever to haunt an audience" she made the successful transition from juvenile performer in tent shows to accomplished leading and character actress with an impressive number of screen credits to her resume.
The daughter of John D. Scott and Maxine Finley, Jackie was born in the small town of Sikeston, Missouri. She began acting professionally from the age of 17 with a small St. Louis community theatre company. She then moved to New York, graduated from New York's Hunter College, did some admin work for David Sarnoff at RCA and eventually studied acting under Uta Hagen. Her breakthrough came when she was chosen by the distinguished thespian Louis Calhern to play the part of his granddaughter in The Wooden Dish on Broadway. Mentored by Calhern (who undoubtedly taught her many tricks of the trade) Jackie was cast that same year opposite Paul Muni in Inherit the Wind, playing a young lass in love with the hapless teacher at the center of the infamous 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial.
On the strength of some early television work in live anthology drama, Jacqueline was brought to Hollywood by William Castle, well-known as a producer of gimmicky low-budget horror movies. Her debut big screen appearance was to be in Macabre (1958), a picture shot in just seven days for a reputed investment of around $90,000. No audience members 'died of fright', nor were any of the $1000 life insurance policies handed out to audiences as part of the publicity campaign cashed in. While certainly no critical masterpiece, the enterprise managed to gross a cool $5 million. More importantly for Jacqueline was meeting on the set of Macabre her future husband (screenwriter and photographer Gene Lesser who also became her agent). Their marriage lasted an impressive (especially by Hollywood standards) 62 years.
Jacqueline's prolific output during the succeeding three decades consisted primarily of TV guest spots. Very much 'a working actress, she could always be counted upon to portray strength and give quietly effective performances, even in relatively passive roles like those many sympathetic wives and girlfriends in assorted Quinn Martin productions of the 60s and 70s. Among her better-known roles were Donna Kimble Taft, sister of David Janssen's man-on-the-run in five installments of The Fugitive (1963), the wife of an astronaut stranded in an alternate universe in The Parallel (1963) and the chimpanzee physician Dr. Kira (Roddy McDowall's friend) in Planet of the Apes (1974) (for which she had to undergo a three-hour make-up session). She later quipped in an interview: "When some of the crew said how pretty I looked, I knew they had been on the show too long!"
In films, Jacqueline was also frequently cast as supportive spouses: Walter Matthau's in Charley Varrick (1973) (her own personal favorite), Dennis Weaver's in Steven Spielberg's directorial debut picture Duel (1971) and James Stewart's in the western Firecreek (1968). A sturdier outdoorsy part came her way via the monster flick Empire of the Ants (1977) in which she found herself pitted against giant killer insects, along with co-stars Robert Lansing and (a less glamorous than usual) Joan Collins. Jackie's frequent forays into the Wild West included repeat appearances in Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), Laramie (1959), Bonanza (1959) and Gunsmoke (1955).- Actress
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Miriam Colon was born on 20 August 1936 in Ponce, Puerto Rico. She was an actress, known for Scarface (1983), Sabrina (1995) and Goal! The Dream Begins (2005). She was married to Fred Valle, George Paul Edgar and ???. She died on 3 March 2017 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
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Ron Hayes was born on 26 February 1929 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Everglades! (1961), The Invaders (1967) and Dallas (1978). He was married to Carol Capek, Caroline Muir, Betty Endicott and Joan Sturgess. He died on 1 October 2004 in Malibu, California, USA.- Tom Simcox was born on 17 June 1937 in Medford, New Jersey, USA. He is an actor, known for Shenandoah (1965), Columbo (1971) and Piranha (1972). He was previously married to Christina Kenney, Kathleen J Rogers and Catherine Mitchell Smythe.
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Stanton was born in West Irvine, Kentucky, to Ersel (Moberly), a cook, and Sheridan Harry Stanton, a barber and tobacco farmer. He lived in Lexington, Kentucky and graduated from Lafayette Senior High School with the class of 1944. Drafted into the Navy, he served as a cook in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and was on board an LST during the Battle of Okinawa. He then returned to the University of Kentucky to appear in a production of "Pygmalion", before heading out to California and honing his craft at the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse. Stanton then toured around the United States with a male choir, worked in children's theater, and then headed back to California.
His first role on screen was in the tepid movie Tomahawk Trail (1957), but he was quickly noticed and appeared regularly in minor roles as cowboys and soldiers through the late 1950s and early 1960s. His star continued to rise and he received better roles in which he could showcase his laid-back style, such as in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Dillinger (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), and in Alien (1979). It was around this time that Stanton came to the attention of director Wim Wenders, who cast him in his finest role yet as Travis in the moving Paris, Texas (1984). Next indie director Alex Cox gave Stanton a role that brought him to the forefront, in the quirky cult film Repo Man (1984).
Stanton was now heavily in demand, and his unique look got him cast as everything from a suburban father in the mainstream Pretty in Pink (1986) to a soft-hearted, but ill-fated, private investigator in Wild at Heart (1990) and a crazy yet cunning scientist in Escape from New York (1981). Apart from his film performances, he was also an accomplished musician, and "The Harry Dean Stanton Band" and their unique spin on mariachi music played together for well over a decade. They toured internationally. He became a cult figure of cinema and music and when Debbie Harry sang the lyric, "I want to dance with Harry Dean..." in her 1990s hit "I Want That Man", she was talking about him. Stanton remained consistently active on screen, lastly appearing in films including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Green Mile (1999) and The Man Who Cried (2000).- H.M. Wynant's many-faceted career began at age 19 when he left his hometown of Detroit, Michigan, after having attended Wayne State University for just two years. He arrived in New York City with only $125 in his pocket and a lot of ambition. Jerome Robbins hired him on the spot at Wynant's first audition, an open call for the Broadway musical "High Button Shoes" starring Eddie Foy. H.M. was working as a draftsman and told Robbins that he had to go to work the next day, Robbins said, "Then quit!" Thus began a career in theater which included productions such as "As You Like It" with Katharine Hepburn, "Love of Four Colonels" starring Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer, "Venus Observed" directed by Laurence Olivier, "The Sound of Music" with Shirley Jones and "Teahouse of the August Moon" starring David Wayne and John Forsythe. These performances garnered him many outstanding reviews and led to a prolific motion picture and television career. In 1956, RKO Pictures cast Wynant, based on his theatrical reputation, sight unseen, in a co-starring role of "Crazy Wolf" in the western, Run of the Arrow (1957). In those days, he was known as Haim Weiner, which was his given name. In New York, he had changed his name to Haim Winant, and the film's director, Samuel Fuller, changed it again to H.M. Wynant, and he's been known by that name ever since. Wynant was true to form as a wild Indian and performed many of his own stunts. A budding film career ensued. In addition to his theatrical career in New York and his film career in Hollywood, he became part of television history by appearing in many live, dramatic television shows. Recently, Wynant's Los Angeles stage performances included playing the lead role in "Karlaboy", a suspense ghost story written by screenwriter Steven Peros. Jules Aaron directed him in "The Sisters Rosensweig" and in "Philadelphia Story" and he continues his work in film, television, commercials, radio and voice-overs. H.M. is the proud father of three grown boys who also have successful show business careers: William Winant, a professor and avant-garde percussionist; Scott Winant, an Emmy-winning producer and director; and Bruce Winant, an actor and singer on Broadway as well as film and television. H.M. lives in Southern California with his wife, Paula, and their young daughter, Pasha (born in 2000).
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Seasoned London-born character actor, who had a lengthy career in American films and on television. The son of an Anglo-Italian music professor, Cyril also had a secondary career in Hollywood as a respected drama coach, engaged by Douglas Fairbanks, James Craig, and others. He appears to have divided the remainder of his time between films and the stage. For some time, around 1936, he was director in charge of production at the Little Theatre in Houston, Texas. Most of his movie roles, beginning in 1931, were uncredited bits. He appeared primarily in serials and 'B-horrors', for which dignified English gentlemen were continuously in demand as undertakers, coroners or townsfolk. Television offered him better opportunities in the early 1950's. Skeletal of build, with a heavily-lined face and a shock of white hair, Cyril always appeared rather older than his years. Something of a specialist in Cockney impersonations, his nonplussed features were also regularly glimpsed as assorted shopkeepers, accountants, butlers or academic types. He popped up to particularly good effect in four episodes of The Twilight Zone (1959), displaying deft comedic abilities as day-dreaming bank employee, Mr. Smithers, in "A Penny for Your Thoughts" (1961). However, Cyril's best on-screen moment came courtesy of The Night of the Iguana (1964), as Deborah Kerr's elderly grandfather Nonno - 'the oldest working poet in the world' - for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination.- Director
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Robert Totten was born on 5 February 1937 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was a director and actor, known for Gunsmoke (1955), The Quick and the Dead (1963) and Pony Express Rider (1976). He was married to Maxine M. Click and Sandra A. Riley. He died on 27 January 1995 in Sherman Oaks, California, USA.- Harvey had a musical background and began his entertainment career in 1918 with "Gus Hill's Honey Boy Minstrels." From there he went on to appear in various minstrel and burlesque shows. This led to many roles in Broadway shows. He went to Hollywood in 1934 and had a career spanning almost fifty years, mostly in small character parts. He was a regular on The Roy Rogers Show (1951) on television, appearing as Sheriff Blodgett.
- Barney Phillips was an American actor of German descent. He was born in 1913 in St. Louis, Missouri, under the name "Bernard Philip Ofner". His father was Harry Nathan Ofner, a salesman employed in the leather industry. His mother was Leona "Lonnie" Frank, a German emigrant who became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
In 1935, Phillips moved to Los Angeles, California, in hopes of working in the film industry. His film debut was the Western film "Black Aces" (1937), a B-movie produced by Universal Pictures. He had no other credited role in films for several years, though he had several theatrical credits.
In 1941, Phillips enlisted in the United States Army. He served in the signal corps during World War II. Following the war, he returned to the film industry, working mostly as an extra.
The first notable role of his career was the recurring character Sergeant Ed Jacob in the police procedural television series "Dragnet" (1951-1959). He voiced the recurring character of police sergeant Hamilton J. Finger in the radio series "Rocky Fortune" (1953-1954). The main character of the series was amateur sleuth Rocco "Rocky Fortune" Fortunato (played by Frank Sinatra).
Phillips was a prolific character on film and television for the following decades, though he was often typecast as a police officer in these roles. In the early 1960s, Phillips appeared in several episodes of the anthology television series "The Twilight Zone": "The Purple Testament" (1960), "A Thing about Machines" (1960) , "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" (1961), and "Miniature" (1963). He is most remembered for the "Real Martian" episode, where he played the cook Haley. In the episode, Haley helps thwart an invasion of Earth from Martians. But reveals that he is an agent from planet Venus, and that he is preparing the Earth for colonization by his own planet.
Phillips was cast in the war-themed series" Twelve O'Clock High" (1964-1967) as one of the main characters, Doc Kaiser. The series featured the missions of the fictional 918th Bombardment Group (Heavy) of the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) in World War II.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Phillips often worked as a voice actor for animated series. He voiced the powerful genie Shazzan in "Shazzan" (1967-1969), he voiced the strongman Porthos in the "The Three Musketeers" (1968-1969), and provided additional voices in "The Funky Phantom" (1971-1972).
In the late 1970s, Phillips was part of the main cast in the short-lived sitcom "The Betty White Show" (1978-1979). He played the character Fletcher Huff, a struggling actor co-starring in a police-procedural show-within-a-show, Phillips also played the recurring character of Judge Buford Potts in the action comedy "The Dukes of Hazzard" (1979-1985).
Phillips died in 1982, due to cancer, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. A few years following his death, Phillips received his final film credit, as the character Dr. Batt in the psychological drama "Beyond Reason". The film had been produced in 1977, but was not released until 1985. The film was mainly notable as a rare directing credit for actor Telly Savalas (1922-1994). - Actor
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William Bryant was born on 31 January 1924 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was an actor, known for King Dinosaur (1955), Battlestar Galactica (1978) and Hondo (1967). He was married to Patricia. He died on 26 June 2001 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Buck Young was born on 6 August 1921 in Winchester, Virginia, USA. He was an actor, known for MacGyver (1985), McMillan & Wife (1971) and Dallas (1978). He was married to Peggy Stewart. He died on 4 February 2000 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Arthur Peterson was born on 18 November 1912 in Mandan, North Dakota, USA. He was an actor, known for Soap (1977), Mission: Impossible (1966) and Targets (1968). He was married to Norma Ransome. He died on 31 October 1996 in Pasadena, California, USA.
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Although best known as the deputy on Bonanza (1959) and Robert in The Magnificent Seven (1960), Russell was also well-known on a national level as the owner of the Portland Mavericks Baseball Club. Helming the only independent team in the Class-A Northwest League, Russell was an innovator. Before Bull Durham (1988), there were the Mavericks. Russell kept a 30-man roster because he believed that some of the players deserved to have one last season. His motto was one 3-letter word. Not WIN, although the Mavericks did just that. No, the word was FUN. He created a park that kept all corporate sponsorship outside the gates, hired the first female general-manager in professional baseball, and the the next year hired the first Asian-American GM/Manager. That season his team set a record for the highest attendance in minor-league history and went on to win the pennant. Ex-major leaguers and never-weres who couldn't stop playing the game flocked to his June tryouts, which were always open to anyone who showed up. Players from as far away as France and Cape Town would head to Portland for a chance with Russell's Mavericks.- Instantly recognizable American character actor with bulbous nose and heavily lined face, who could convey integrity or menace to equal effect. He first came to prominence on radio as (Captain) Starr of Space (1953), using ray guns to combat Martians and alien queens. Beginning in 1953, Larch accumulated an impressive resume of TV series credits, spanning almost the entire spectrum of the best western, crime and science-fiction shows the 1950's and 60's had to offer. His authoritarian personality and demeanor generally typecast him as police officers, military men, attorneys and politicians. Quite a few of these turned out to be either corrupt or outright villains. Point in case, his performance as a tough hood in The Phenix City Story (1955), described by Bosley Crowther as "stinging" in "hard malevolence" (New York Times, September 3, 1955).
At his best, Larch was the nervous Mr. Fremont, father to the eminently dangerous Anthony (Bill Mumy) in the classic entry into The Twilight Zone (1959), 'It's a Good Life'. In The Invaders (1967) episode 'Genesis', he was again excellent as police officer Greg Lucather, at first skeptical, but subsequently swayed by irrefutable evidence to help in David Vincent's quest. On the big screen, he is perhaps best remembered as Harry Callahan's Chief of Police in the original Dirty Harry (1971). - Harry Townes was born and died in Huntsville, Alabama, where he served as an ordained Episcopal priest. Aside from Huntsville and the priesthood, he had a distinguished, prolific, and quite long career as a character actor in movies and on television. He attended the University of Alabama in the 1930s, but moved to New York, before finishing, in order to study acting. He found his niche at Columbia University where he also received his undergraduate degree. From there, it was on to roles on stage -- his first in 1936 playing Captain Tim in "Tobacco Road". A two-year run in the part of a leprechaun in "Finian's Rainbow" came next -- a role that also took him to London. After a spattering of roles in the movies, Townes found his greatest presence on television, amassing a very large portfolio of roles for his handbag of characters. Studio One (1948), Playhouse 90 (1956) and Ponds Theater (1953) all enjoyed his contributions. The more popular Gunsmoke (1955), Perry Mason (1957), Star Trek (1966), Rawhide (1959) and Bonanza (1959) also benefited from Townes' acting skills. Though he continued to perform occasionally into old age, he quit his Beverly Hills home and lifestyle, entered the priesthood, and settled back into his hometown of Huntsville in the 1970s.
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Prolific American character actor of primarily villainous roles. The son of German parents, Cincinnati feed-store manager August Wilke and his wife Rose, Robert Joseph Wilke grew up in Cincinnati. He worked as a lifeguard at a Miami, Florida, hotel, where he made contacts in the film business. He was able to obtain work as a stuntman and continued as such until the mid-'40s, when he began getting actual roles in low-budget westerns and serials. A prominent appearance as one of the heavies in High Noon (1952) led to work in higher-quality films. He worked extensively in television as well as movies, and became an enormously familiar face, though a fairly anonymous one to the general public. His weathered visage made him a perfect western bad guy, but he occasionally played sympathetic parts as well, as in Days of Heaven (1978). An expert golfer, he was said by his friend Claude Akins to have earned more money on the golf course than he ever did in movies. He died in 1989.- Actor
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George Harris Kennedy, Jr. was born on February 18, 1925 in New York City, to Helen (Kieselbach), a ballet dancer, and George Harris Kennedy, an orchestra leader and musician. Following high school graduation, Kennedy enlisted in the United States Army in 1943 with the hope to become a fighter pilot in the Army Air Corps. Instead, he wound up in the infantry, served under General George S. Patton and distinguished himself with valor. He won two Bronze Stars and four rows of combat and service ribbons.
A World War II veteran, Kennedy at one stage in his career cornered the market at playing tough, no-nonsense characters who were either quite crooked or possessed hearts of gold. Kennedy notched up an impressive 200+ appearances in both television and films, and was well respected within the Hollywood community. He started out on television Westerns in the late 1950s and early 1960s (Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), Rawhide (1959), Maverick (1957), Colt .45 (1957), among others) before scoring minor roles in films including Lonely Are the Brave (1962), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and The Flight of the Phoenix (1965).
The late 1960s was a very busy period for Kennedy, and he was strongly in favor with casting agents, appearing in Hurry Sundown (1967), The Dirty Dozen (1967) and scoring an Oscar win as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Cool Hand Luke (1967). The disaster film boom of the 1970s was also kind to Kennedy and his talents were in demand for Airport (1970) and the three subsequent sequels, as a grizzled police officer in Earthquake (1974), plus the buddy/road film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) as vicious bank robber Red Leary.
The 1980s saw Kennedy appear in a mishmash of roles, playing various characters; however, Kennedy and Leslie Nielsen surprised everyone with their comedic talents in the hugely successful The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), and the two screen veterans exaggerate themselves again, in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991) and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994). From 1988-1991, he also played Ewing family nemesis Carter McKay on the CBS prime-time soap opera Dallas (1978).
Kennedy also played President Warren G. Harding in the miniseries Backstairs at the White House (1979) and had a long standing role on the CBS daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless (1973). He remained busy in Hollywood and lent his distinctive voice to the animated Cats Don't Dance (1997) and the children's action film Small Soldiers (1998). A Hollywood stalwart for nearly 50 years, he is one of the most enjoyable actors to watch on screen. His last role was in the film The Gambler (2014), as Mark Wahlberg's character's grandfather.
George Kennedy died of natural causes in Middleton, Idaho on February 28, 2016, only ten days after his 91st birthday.- Actor
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Bartlett Robinson was born on 9 December 1912 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Sleeper (1973), The Fortune Cookie (1966) and The Spirit of St. Louis (1957). He was married to Margaret White Ballantine. He died on 26 March 1986 in Fallbrook, California, USA.- Actor
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Never a big name but always a reliable staple on TV crime shows during the 1960s and 1970s, Harold J. Stone usually was seen in a strong, unsympathetic vein -- an unyielding father or husband, corrupt businessman, menacing crime figure, etc. A sober-looking gent with a block jaw, Romanesque-styled nose and steely gray-black hair, he was also prone to playing ethnic types of varying origins.
Born Harold Jacob Hochstein in New York City on March 3, 1913, the scion of a Jewish acting family who established themselves in the Yiddish theater, Stone started on stage with his father as a child. He once entertained a career in medicine, attaining a BA degree at the University of Buffalo Medical School, but acting proved too strong a desire. After initially finding work in radio, Stone made his Broadway bow with "The World We Make" (1939), which led to other productions such as "Morning Star" (1940) and "A Bell for Adano" (1944). His early work in New York on stage and TV eventually paved the way to a modest character career in movies and a move to Hollywood.
In the 1950s Stone began to provide a minor, shady presence in such "A" films as Humphrey Bogart's The Harder They Fall (1956), Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man (1956), the Rocky Graziano biopic Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), the ultimate gladiator spectacle Spartacus (1960) and the gangster epic The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967) in which he played Chicago mobster Frank Nitti. He also played a no-nonsense foil to good friend Jerry Lewis in a few of his wacky 60s comedies. None of these, however, did much to improve his standing. Television, on the other hand, became a strong and steady medium for Stone, and he became a fixture in hundreds of police dramas including 77 Sunset Strip (1958), Naked City (1958), The Untouchables (1959), Mannix (1967), Mission: Impossible (1966), The Rockford Files (1974) and Kojak (1973). He was once Emmy-nominated for a dramatic guest role.
Left a widower by his first wife Joan in 1960, by whom he had two children, he continued to work primarily on episodic TV into the mid-1980s before retiring and settling down with his second wife Miriam (from 1962), who bore him another child. He died in Woodland Hills, California at age 92.- Actress
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Virginia Gregg was born on 6 March 1916 in Harrisburg, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Operation Petticoat (1959), Crime in the Streets (1956) and Police Story (1973). She was married to Jaime Del Valle. She died on 15 September 1986 in Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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The son of Edwin Schallert, drama editor of the "Los Angeles Times" and the dean of West Coast critics, William Schallert became interested in an acting career while at UCLA in 1942. After graduation, he became involved with the Circle Theater (eventually becoming one of its owners) and made his film debut in The Foxes of Harrow (1947). He then became ubiquitous in movies and TV ever since, and from 1979 to 1981, he was president of the Screen Actors Guild. He stayed active with SAG projects and said he never gave retirement a thought.- A prolific character actor of imposing presence, Robert F. Simon drifted into acting via the Cleveland Playhouse, hoping that this would cure his natural propensity for shyness. After training at the Actor's Studio in New York he had a ten year run on Broadway (1942-52) in which he cut his teeth--both as actor and as stage manager--on anything from drama to musical comedy. In a roundabout way, he was even able to fulfill his original career goal of becoming a traveling salesman: as understudy to the great Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman".
Robert started in films in 1950, but over the years came often to be typecast in stereotypical roles of benevolent authoritarianism or grouchy executive stress. At times he drew unkind reviews from the critics. He was considerably better served by the small screen, where, for some 35 years, he became a familiar face as generals, police captains, doctors, journalists and attorneys. We may remember him most fondly as George Armstrong Custer's disapproving superior, General Alfred Terry, in Custer (1967); as the sympathetic, long-suffering father of Darrin Stephens in Bewitched (1964); or as Maynard M. Mitchell, one of the wackiest of generals ever to have served in the Korean War (or any other war), in M*A*S*H (1972). - Actor
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American character actor specializing in tough guys and heavies. A native of Yonkers, New York. He worked on the Broadway stage and then became an increasingly familiar figure in Westerns and crime dramas, after World War II. Although almost as familiar a presence in films as his contemporaries Warren Oates, Robert J. Wilke, and Leo Gordon, for some reason Lambert never became as well-known, despite having appeared in a great number of similar roles and films. His credits are often confused with those of the Scottish actor of the same name, Jack Lambert.- Kevin Hagen is the son of professional ballroom dancers, Haakon Olaf Hagen and Marvel Lucile Wadsworth. His father abandoned the family when Kevin was five. He was raised by his mother, grandmother, and two aunts, with some help from his uncle, a physician.
The family moved to Portland, Oregon, when Kevin was a teenager. He played baseball and football at Jefferson High School. He attended Oregon State University before enlisting in the U.S. Navy after World War II; he served in San Diego.
Hagen, married four times, was a single parent for two decades to his son, Christopher Hagen, a Special Education teacher and high school baseball coach in Bakersfield, California. - Harry Swoger, late Sunday, June 14, 1970, died at Valley Emergency Hospital in Van Nuys, CA.
Funeral services were held Thursday, June 18, 1970, at Steen's Mortuary in North Hollywood, CA.
Swoger was a character actor in over 100 television shows, many westerns, from 1959 at the age of 40, until his 1970 death at 51.
He was a member of The Screen Actors Guild, past master of Farmers Lodge # 153 F. and A.M. of Fredonia, OH, and a 32nd Degree Mason at Scioto, Consistory, Columbus, OH. - Actor
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Character actor Anthony James was born on July 22, 1942 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Unusually tall (6' 6½) and lanky, with a rough, pockmarked face, a lean, stringy build, and an extremely intense screen presence, James was often cast in Westerns as scary, sleazy villains. He was especially memorable as the racist diner counterman in the outstanding In the Heat of the Night (1967). Other noteworthy parts include a gay hitchhiker in the cult classic Vanishing Point (1971), a priest in The Culpepper Cattle Co. (1972), an outlaw in High Plains Drifter (1973), a deranged psycho in The Teacher (1974), the chauffeur from hell in the chiller Burnt Offerings (1976), and the vicious leader of a gang of ferocious barbarians in the science fiction film Ravagers (1979).
James was hilarious in a rare change-of-pace good guy role as a heroic cannibal (!) in the post-nuke sci-fi romp World Gone Wild (1987), and also parodying his evil persona in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991). Among the many television shows in which he appeared in guest roles were Married... with Children (1987), Beauty and the Beast (1987), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), Simon & Simon (1981), The A-Team (1983), Riptide (1984), The Fall Guy (1981), Hunter (1984), Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), Quincy M.E. (1976), Charlie's Angels (1976), Vega$ (1978), Starsky and Hutch (1975), S.W.A.T. (1975), Ironside (1967), Hawaii Five-O (1968), Bonanza (1959), Gunsmoke (1955) and The Big Valley (1965).
James's last film appearance to date was as the owner of a seedy bordello in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992). After quitting acting in the early 1990s, he pursued a successful career as an artist. His paintings have been exhibited in galleries in such major cities as New York, Boston and Miami.- Robert Random was born on 29 January 1943 in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. He is an actor, known for Tick, Tick, Tick (1970), Village of the Giants (1965) and Then Came Bronson (1969).