- Born
- Died
- Birth nameWendell Reid Corey
- Height6′ 1½″ (1.87 m)
- Wendell Corey was a hard-working American character actor who appeared
in numerous movies and television productions in the 1940s, '50s and
'60s. Born on March 20, 1914 in Dracut, Massachusetts, in the
northeastern part of the Commonwealth near the New Hampshire border,
Corey was the son of a Congregationalist clergyman. After receiving his
education, Corey began his acting career in summer stock. During the
Depression he worked with the Federal Theater Project, part of the
Works Progress Administration that had been created by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt to
put the unemployed to work. It was while working with the Federal
Theater Project in the late 1930s that he met his wife, Alice Wiley.
He made his Broadway debut in "Comes the Revelation" in 1942, a flop
that lasted only two performances. His next play, "Strip for Action"
(1942-43), was more successful, lasting 110 performances. He appeared
in more plays in supporting roles from 1943-45, before making his
reputation as the cynical newspaperman in
Elmer Rice's hit comedy "Dream Girl," which
ran for 341 performances in the 1945-46 season. He was discovered
during the run of the play by producer
Hal B. Wallis, the former head of
production at Warner Bros. who was an independent producer affiliated
with Paramount Pictures. Wallis, who discovered
Burt Lancaster shortly after the war,
signed Corey to a Paramount contract.
It was at Paramount that he made his movie debut in
Desert Fury (1947). He went on to a
career as a supporting player in the '40s and '50s in A-level
productions with top Hollywood stars. He also carved a niche for
himself in television and in the late 1950s starred in the TV series
Peck's Bad Girl (1959). In
the 1960s he worked mostly in television.
Like Ronald Reagan, who was then a
Democrat, the Republican Corey was interested in politics. He was
elected to membership on the board of directors of the Screen Actors
Guild and served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences from 1961 to 1963. As a Republican, he was elected to the City
Council in Santa Monica, California, in 1965. He made a bid for the
Republican nomination to contest a seat in Congress in 1966, but was
defeated in the primary.
Corey was still serving on the Santa Monica City Council when he died
on November 8, 1968 at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital in
Woodland Hills, California. He was 54 years old.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood
- SpouseAlice Nevin Wiley(November 19, 1939 - November 8, 1968) (his death, 4 children)
- Children
- ParentsJulia N. Wiley
- Career was acutely damaged by his problems with alcohol.
- Kirk Douglas spoke at Corey's funeral. However, many years later he claimed that he had done so only as a kindness to Corey's widow and that he and Corey, who had started out in Hollywood at roughly the same time and worked together in those early days, had in fact disliked each other. He also claimed that Corey was an alcoholic and an anti-Semite.
- President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1961-63.
- Father of Jonathan Corey and Robin Corey, who appeared as his children in The File on Thelma Jordon (1949).
- Ws set to play Gen. William Quantrell in Red Mountain (1951) but had to drop out due to illness and was replaced by John Ireland.
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