T-Men

Dennis O'Keefe (Actor) .. Dennis O'Brien/Vannie Harrigan

Born: March 29, 1908
Died: August 31, 1968

Trivia: Born Edward Flanagan, O'Keefe was a lithe, brash, charming, tall, rugged lead actor. The son of vaudevillians, he began appearing onstage in his parents' act while still a toddler. By age 16 he was writing scripts for "Our Gang" comedy shorts. He attended some college and did more work on vaudeville before entering films in the early '30s, appearing in bit roles in more than 50 films under the name Bud Flanagan. His work in a small role in the film Saratoga (1937) impressed Clark Gable, who recommended that he be cast in leads. MGM agreed, so he changed his name to Dennis O'Keefe and went on to play leads in numerous films, beginning with Bad Man of Brimstone (1938). Besides many light action-oriented films, he also appeared in numerous '40s comedies, and later specialized in tough-guy parts. Later in his career he directed a film or two and also wrote mystery stories. In the late '50s O'Keefe starred in the short-lived TV series "The Dennis O'Keefe Show." He was in only two films in the '60s. He died at 60 of lung cancer. His widow is actress Steffi Duna.

Mary Meade (Actor) .. Evangeline

Alfred Ryder (Actor) .. Tony Genaro/Tony Galvani

Born: January 05, 1916
Died: April 16, 1995
Birthplace: New York, New York

Trivia: A product of New York's Professional Children's School, Alfred Ryder was making a living as an actor at the age of 8. In 1929, Ryder made his Broadway debut, playing "lost boy" Curly in Eva Le Galleine's production of Peter Pan. As a teenager and young adult, Ryder studied his craft with such masters as Benno Schneider, Robert Lewis and Lee Strasberg. He went on to appear in such plays as Awake and Sing and Yellow Jack, and for many years was heard as Sammy in the radio serial Rise of the Goldbergs. While serving in the military in 1944, he made his first film, Winged Victory, in which he was billed as "PFC Alfred Ryder." After the war, he returned to the stage, re-emerging in films in the late 1950s. His movie credits of the 1960s include significant character parts in Hotel (1967) and True Grit (1968). Ryder also made scores of TV guest-star appearances, including the role of Professor Carter in the opening Star Trek episode "The Man Trap" (1966). Alfred Ryder made his last film in 1976, thereafter concentrating on his stage activities as actor and director.

Wallace Ford (Actor) .. Schemer

Born: February 12, 1898
Died: June 11, 1966

Trivia: Once there was a film historian who opined that Wallace Ford was in more movies than any other character actor of his prominence. This is unlikely, but Ford was certainly kept busy in roles of all shapes and sizes during his 35-year movie career. Orphaned in infancy, Ford grew up in various British orphanages and foster homes (his search in the mid-1930s for his natural parents drew worldwide headlines). He first set foot on stage at age 11, playing in vaudeville and music halls before working his way up to Broadway. His inauspicious feature-film debut was in Swellhead (1931), a baseball melodrama which lay on the shelf for nearly five years before its release. He went on to play wisecracking leading roles in such "B"s as Night of Terror (1933), The Nut Farm (1935) and The Mystery of Mr. Wong (1935); the critics paid no heed to these minor efforts, though they always showered Ford with praise for his supporting roles in films like John Ford's The Informer (1935) and Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943). He occasionally took a leave of absence from films to accept a stage role; in 1937, he created the part of George in the original Broadway production of Of Mice and Men (1937). As he grew balder and stockier, he remained in demand for middle-aged character roles, often portraying wistful drunks or philosophical ne'er-do-wells. Wallace Ford ended his film career with his powerful portrayal of Elizabeth Hartman's vacillating father in A Patch of Blue (1965).

June Lockhart (Actor) .. Tony's Wife

Born: June 25, 1925
Birthplace: New York, New York, United States

Trivia: The daughter of actors Gene and Kathleen Lockhart, June Lockhart made her own acting bow at age 8. In 1938, the 12-year-old June appeared in her first film, A Christmas Carol (1938), in which her parents portrayed Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cratchit. Few of her ingenue roles of the 1940s were memorable, though Lockhart did get to play the title character in The She-Wolf of London (1945) (never mind that she turned out not to be a she-wolf by fadeout time). In 1958, Lockhart took over from a recalcitrant Cloris Leachman in the role of rural wife and mother Ruth Martin on the long-running TV series Lassie. Though she professed to despise the role, Lockhart remained with the series until 1964, and over 20 years later satirically reprised the character on an episode of It's Garry Shandling's Show. She went on to play the young matriarch of the "space family Robinson" on the Irwin Allen TV endeavor Lost in Space (1965-68), and portrayed a lady doctor on the last two seasons of the bucolic sitcom Petticoat Junction. In deliberate contrast to her TV image, Lockhart enjoyed a bohemian, kick-up-your-heels offscreen existence. At one juncture, she was fired from her co-hosting chores at the Miss USA pageant when it was revealed that (gasp!) she was living with a man much younger than herself. June Lockhart is the mother of Anne Lockhart, a prolific TV actress in her own right.

Charles McGraw (Actor) .. Moxie

Born: May 10, 1914
Died: July 30, 1980

Trivia: Gravel-voiced, granite-faced stage actor Charles McGraw made his first film The Moon is Down in 1943. At first it seemed as though McGraw would spend his movie career languishing in villainy, but while working at RKO in the late 1940s-early 1950s, the actor developed into an unorthodox but fascinating leading man. His shining hour (actually 72 minutes) was the role of the embittered detective assigned to protect mob witness Marie Windsor in the 1952 noir classic The Narrow Margin. McGraw continued being cast in the raffish-hero mold on television, essaying the lead in the 1954 syndicated series Adventures of Falcon and assuming the Bogartesque role of café owner Rick Blaine in the 1955 weekly TV adaptation of Casablanca (1955) (his last regular TV work was the supporting part of Captain Hughes on the 1971 Henry Fonda starrer The Smith Family). Active until the mid-1970s, Charles McGraw growled and scowled his way through such choice character roles as gladiator trainer Marcellus in Spartacus (1960), Sebastian Sholes in Hitchcock's The Birds (1963), and The Preacher in the cult favorite A Boy and His Dog (1975).

Jane Randolph (Actor) .. Diana

Born: October 30, 1919
Died: May 04, 2009

Trivia: A former model, brunette leading lady Jane Randolph made her first film appearance in Warner Bros.' Manpower (1941) playing a bit as a hat check girl. Randolph was immediately signed to a contract by RKO Radio Pictures, where she spent the next few years in the studio's "B"-picture mill. Her best role under the RKO banner was Alice Moore, the young lady terrorized during a nocturnal swim by the malevolent Simone Simon in Val Lewton's Cat People (1942) She reprised this role in the 1944 follow-up Curse of the Cat People, expertly handling the film's complex, literate dialogue sequences. Jane Randolph retired from films after playing blonde insurance investigator Joan Raymond in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

Art Smith (Actor) .. Gregg

Born: March 23, 1899
Died: February 24, 1973

Trivia: A well-known stage actor since his debut in 1924, Art Smith (born Arthur Gordon Smith) won the New York Critics Award for his performance in Rocket to the Moon. He made his screen debut the following year as one of the Norwegian resistance fighters in the World War II melodrama Edge of Darkness (1942). With his trademark snowy hair, Smith became a visible and welcome presence in films thereafter, usually cast as studious types. Working well into the television era, the veteran performer retired after a starring role in the 1967 television play Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night. He should not be confused with ubiquitous B-Western entrepreneur Denver Dixon (aka Art Mix), who billed himself "Colonel Art Smith" in a couple of films in the early '30s.

Herbert Heyes (Actor) .. Chief Carson

Born: August 03, 1889
Died: May 30, 1958

Trivia: Herbert Heyes was somewhere between the ages of 10 and 13 when he first trod the boards as a member of the Baker Stock Company in Portland, Oregon. By 1910, Heyes was playing leads in the touring company run by actor/manager James K. Hackett. He was firmly established on Broadway when, in 1916, he was hired by Fox Films to play opposite Theda Bara in a series of steamy romances (Under Two Flags, Salome, etc.). Returning to New York, Heyes remained a busy stage and radio actor into the 1940s. He resumed his film career in the early 1940s, playing such character parts as department store magnate Mr. Gimbel in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Ronald Reagan's prospective father-in-law in Bedtime for Bonzo (1951), and his favorite screen role, manufacturer Charles Eastman in George Stevens' A Place in the Sun (1951). Heyes' dignified demeanor kept him in demand throughout the 1950s for minor but pivotal roles like President Thomas Jefferson in The Far Horizons (1955) and General Pershing in The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955). Herbert Heyes was the father of writer/director Douglas Heyes, of Maverick and Twilight Zone fame.

Jack Overman (Actor) .. Brownie

Born: January 01, 1915
Died: January 01, 1950

John Wengraf (Actor) .. Shiv

Born: January 01, 1896
Died: May 04, 1974

Trivia: The son of a Viennese drama critic, John Wengraf enjoyed an extensive -- and expensive -- theatrical training. Wengraf made his stage debut in repertory in 1920, then graduated to the Vienna Volkstheater. He flourished as an actor and director in Berlin until the Nazis came to power in 1933. Moving to England, he appeared in a few films there, and also participated in some of the first BBC live-television presentations. In 1941, he made his Broadway bow, and in 1942 launched his Hollywood career. An imposing-looking fellow who somewhat resembled British actor Leo G. Carroll, Wengraf was frequently cast as erudite Nazi officials; after the war, he specialized in portraying mittel-European doctors and psychiatrists. From the 1950s until his retirement in 1963, John Wengraf made several TV appearances, including two guest-star gigs on The Untouchables.

Jim Bannon (Actor) .. Lindsay

Born: April 09, 1911

Trivia: After distinguishing himself in athletics at Rockhurst college, Jim Bannon launched his film career as a stunt man and double. Under contract to Columbia in the mid-1940s, Bannon starred in a brace of films based on the radio series I Love a Mystery. Bannon was also one of four actors to essay the role of B-western hero Red Ryder, and was a regular on such radio series as The Great Gildersleeve and Stars over Hollywood. In 1955, Bannon starred on the Gene Autry-produced TV series The Adventures of Champion. At one time married to actress Bea Benaderet, Jim Bannon was the father of TV actor Jack Bannon.

William Malten (Actor) .. Paul Miller

Vivian Austin (Actor) .. Genevieve

Born: January 01, 1919
Died: August 02, 2004

Trivia: A former Miss Hollywood and a dancer under the name of Vivian Coe, this Universal contract starlet of the 1940s entered films as a Goldwyn Girl in The Goldwyn Follies (1938). That and a few other chorus girl assignments led to the contract with Universal, which cast her opposite Donald Barry in the original Red Ryder serial, The Adventures of Red Ryder (1940). For unknown reasons, the studio then changed her name to Vivian Austin and as such she appeared in B-musicals with Donald O'Connor and Peggy Ryan, a couple of oaters with Rod Cameron, and the well-received comedy The Men in Her Diary (1944). An eye disease that almost rendered her blind curtailed Austin's career and she left films after the 1947 action melodrama T-Men. Vivian Austin's life had a happy ending, however; in Palm Springs, CA, she found a physician who could and did restore her sight. They married soon after.

James Seay (Actor) .. Hardy

Born: January 01, 1914
Died: January 01, 1992

Trivia: James Seay was groomed for romantic leads by Paramount Pictures beginning in 1940. After several nondescript minor roles, Seay finally earned a major part--not as a hero, but as a villainous gang boss in the Columbia "B" The Face Behind the Mask (1941). Never quite reaching the top ranks, Seay nonetheless remained on the film scene as a dependable general purpose actor, appearing in such small but attention-getting roles as Dr. Pierce, the retirement-home physician who explains the eccentricities of "Kris Kringle" (Edmund Gwenn) in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). In the 1950s, James Seay joined the ranks of horror and sci-fi movie "regulars;" he could be seen in films like The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Killers from Space (1954), The Beginning of the End (1957), and--as the luckless military officer who is skewered by a gigantic hypodermic needle--The Amazing Colossal Man (1957).

Lyle Latell (Actor) .. Isgreg

Born: April 09, 1905
Died: October 24, 1967

Trivia: Open-faced, prominently chinned character actor Lyle Latell began surfacing in films in the late 1930s. Only occasionally did Latell rise above the status of bit player; he was most often seen as a wisecracking reporter, griping military man or cheerful cabbie. From 1945 through 1947, Latell was a regular in RKO's Dick Tracy "B"-picture series, playing Tracy's assistant Pat Patton. Lyle Latell was married to Mary Foy, one of the "Seven Little Foys" of vaudeville fame.

John Newland (Actor) .. Jackson Lee

Born: November 23, 1917
Died: January 10, 2000
Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio

Trivia: During the late '50s, John Newland was best known as a television as host of the fantasy series One Step Beyond, which specialized in dramas dealing with difficult-to-explain phenomenon involving telepathy, life after death, and other stuff of fantasy and speculation. He made his first feature film, That Night (1957) -- a daring, ahead-of-its-time story of a businessman's heart attack and its effect on his family -- during that same period. His second movie, The Violators (1957), attracted less attention, and since then Newland has worked largely in television-based material, including The Spy With My Face (1968), an above-average feature film adaptation of a Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode featuring Senta Berger with the usual cast of Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, and Leo G. Carroll, and TV movies such as A Sensitive Passionate Man (1977) and The Suicide's Wife (1979).

Victor Cutler (Actor) .. Snapbrim

Tito Vuolo (Actor) .. Pasquale

Born: March 22, 1873
Died: September 14, 1962

Trivia: Very few people remember Tito Vuolo's name, but in more than 40 movies and dozens of television shows -- ranging from comedy to film noir -- the Italian-born actor graced audiences with his presence. With his thick accent, short stature, and open, honest features, Vuolo was for many years the epitome of the ethnically identifiable, usually genial Italian, at a time when such portrayals were routine and encouraged in cinema. He could play excitable or nervous in a way that stole a scene, or move through a scene so smoothly that you scarcely noticed him. Vuolo's movie career began in 1946 with an uncredited appearance as a waiter in Shadow of the Thin Man, and he quickly chalked up roles in two further crime movies, the film noir classics Michael Gordon's The Web and Henry Hathaway's Kiss of Death. He was also part of the cast of Dudley Nichols' Mourning Becomes Electra, RKO's disastrous attempt to bring serious theater to the screen, but much of Vuolo's work turned up in films of a grittier nature, such as Anthony Mann's T-Men and The Enforcer, directed by Bretaigne Windust and Raoul Walsh -- the latter film afforded Vuolo one of his most prominent roles in a plot, as the hapless cab driver whose witnessing (with his little girl) of a murder sets in motion a series of events that brings about a dozen murders and ultimately destroys an entire criminal organization. Vuolo's short, squat appearance could also be used to comical effect in a specifically non-ethnic context, as in King Vidor's The Fountainhead, when he turns up at the home of Dominique Francon (Patricia Neal), in place of the expected arrival of tall, lean Howard Roarke (Gary Cooper), in response to her calculated request for repairs to the stone-work in her home. And sometimes he just stole a scene with his finely nuanced use of his accent and an agitated manner, as in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House -- his character goes into an excruciatingly funny explanation to Cary Grant about why he has to blast part of the proposed building site ("Thas-a no rock -- thas-a ledge"). Baby boomers may also remember Vuolo from his role in the 1953 Adventures of Superman episode "My Friend Superman," in which he portrayed a well-meaning luncheonette owner whose claim that Superman is a personal friend of his sets in motion a plot to kidnap Lois Lane. Vuolo's final film appearance was in the Ray Harryhausen science fiction thriller 20 Million Miles to Earth, playing the police commissioner. The beloved character actor died of cancer in 1962. Published dates of birth on Vuolo vary by as much as 19 years (1873 or 1892), so he was either 70 years old or 89 years old at the time of his death.

John Parrish (Actor) .. Harry

Born: February 25, 1896

Curt Conway (Actor) .. Shorty

Born: May 04, 1915
Died: April 10, 1974
Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts

Trivia: Wiry, solemn-faced American actor Curt Conway interrupted stage work to appear in his first film, Gentleman's Agreement (1947). As Bert McAnny in the Oscar-winning film, Conway was one of many Anglo-Saxon types who opened mouth and inserted foot when Gregory Peck, investigating anti-Semitism, pretended to be Jewish. Conway was a stalwart of television's "live" days of the '50s, at which time he did some directing as well as acting. Twilight Zone fans will remember a heavily made-up Conway in the 1963 episode "He's Alive"; the actor played a shadowy stranger who gives advice to a neo-Nazi activist (Dennis Hopper) on how to get ahead, and who at the end of the episode turns out to be--to everyone's surprise but the audience--Adolph Hitler. Having begun his film career in a movie indictment of race prejudice, Curt Conway ended his career in a film dealing with the same subject, 1971's The Man.

Ricki Van Dusen (Actor) .. Girl on Plane

Irmgard Dawson (Actor) .. Hostess on Plane

Robert B. Williams (Actor) .. Detective Captain

Born: January 01, 1905
Died: January 01, 1978

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from 1937.

Anton Kosta (Actor) .. Vantucci

Paul Fierro (Actor) .. Chops

Born: January 19, 1916

Louis Bacigalupi (Actor) .. Boxcar

Born: January 01, 1909
Died: January 01, 1966

Trevor Bardette (Actor) .. Rudy

Born: January 01, 1902
Died: November 28, 1977

Trivia: American actor Trevor Bardette could truly say that he died for a living. In the course of a film career spanning three decades, the mustachioed, granite-featured Bardette was "killed off" over 40 times as a screen villain. Entering movies in 1936 after abandoning a planned mechanical engineering career for the Broadway stage, Bardette was most often seen as a rustler, gangster, wartime collaborator and murderous backwoodsman. His screen skullduggery carried over into TV; one of Bardette's best remembered video performances was as a "human bomb" on an early episode of Superman. Perhaps being something of a reprobate came naturally to Trevor Bardette -- or so he himself would claim in later years when relating a story of how, as a child, he'd won ten dollars writing an essay on "the evils of tobacco," only to be caught smoking behind the barn shortly afterward.

William Yip (Actor) .. Chinese Merchant

Born: January 01, 1895
Died: January 01, 1968

Alan Bridge (Actor) .. Agent in Phone Booth

Born: February 26, 1891

Al Bridge (Actor) .. Agent in Phone Booth

Born: February 26, 1891
Died: December 27, 1957

Trivia: In films from 1931, Alan Bridge was always immediately recognizable thanks to his gravel voice, unkempt moustache and sour-persimmon disposition. Bridge spent a lot of time in westerns, playing crooked sheriffs and two-bit political hacks; he showed up in so many Hopalong Cassidy westerns that he was practically a series regular. From 1940's Christmas in July onward, the actor was one of the most ubiquitous members of writer/director Preston Sturges' "stock company." He was at his very best as "The Mister," a vicious chain-gang overseer, in Sturges' Sullivan's Travels, and as the political-machine boss in the director's Hail the Conquering Hero, shining brightly in an extremely lengthy single-take scene with blustery Raymond Walburn. Alan Bridge also essayed amusing characterizations in Sturges' Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1946), Unfaithfully Yours (1948, as the house detective) and the director's final American film, The Beautiful Blonde From Bashful Bend (1949).

Keefe Brasselle (Actor) .. Cigar Attendant

Born: February 07, 1923
Died: July 02, 1981

Trivia: First seen in the wartime comedy Janie (1944), American actor Keefe Brasselle was never more than a second-string leading man in Hollywood, though he enjoyed moderate success as a nightclub singer. Brasselle's biggest bid for film stardom, the title role of The Eddie Cantor Story (1953), also proved to be his Hollywood Waterloo; as bad as this movie was, the actor's interpretation of Cantor was worse. Nonetheless, Brasselle's career took an upswing when he entered television in the early 1960s. The reason was quite simple: Brasselle was a close friend of CBS programming executive James Aubrey. For whatever reason, Brasselle was catapulted to a production position at CBS, and allowed to develop no fewer than three new, expensive weekly series. In addition, the performer hosted a summer variety series, which most critics found to be a textbook example of mediocrity. The three new CBS series died, and Brasselle's relationship with Aubrey cooled. In 1966, Brasselle would turn on his former mentor, writing an a clef novel about the cutthroat world of network broadcasting, subtly titled The Cannibals. For reasons unknown, one of the principal targets of Brasselle's vitriol was beloved comedian Jack Benny, called Jackie Benson in the novel; perhaps it was because Benny had never publicly acknowledged Brasselle's existence and reportedly thought that Keefe's name was "Keith Brazil." Shortly after making headlines for a deadly-weapon assault in 1971, Keefe Brasselle said adios to the entertainment world by starring in an X-rated musical comedy, If You Don't Stop It, You'll Go Blind (1974); it was, need we say, light years away from The Eddie Cantor Story.

Leslie Sketchley (Actor) .. Big Guy

Born: January 01, 1901
Died: January 01, 1972

George M. Manning (Actor) .. Man

Paul Hogan (Actor) .. Man

Jerry Jerome (Actor) .. Dice Player

Bernie Sell (Actor) .. Dice Player

Ralph Brooks (Actor) .. Dice Player

Born: September 23, 1915

John Ardell (Actor) .. Dice Player

Sandra Gould (Actor) .. Girl at Phone

Born: July 23, 1921
Died: July 20, 1999

Trivia: Veteren performer Sandra Gould was probably best known for her recurring role as Gladys Kravitz on the popular TV series Bewitched. Gould started her acting career at the age of nine, appearing on stage and on radio. She was a very prolific presence on radio as an adult performer. When she made the switch to television, she was just as hardworking. Some of the many programs she was featured on include The Twilight Zone, The Flintstones (on which she voiced the character of Betty Rubble), and My Three Sons. Later in life, she made appearances on the Kirstie Alley sitcom Veronica's Closet, as well as on another, more popular NBC sitcom, Friends. She passed away from a stroke, in Burbank, CA, on July 20, 1999, shortly before her 83rd birthday.

Cuca Martinez (Actor) .. Dancer in Club

Salvadore Barroga (Actor) .. Housekeeper

Tom McGuire (Actor) .. Couple at Car

Born: January 01, 1873
Died: January 01, 1954

Mira McKinney (Actor) .. Couple at Car

Born: January 01, 1892
Died: May 02, 1978

Trivia: American character actress Mira McKinney specialized in conveying silent outrage, imperiousness and embarrassment. One of McKinney's first screen appearances was Modern Times (1936), in which she and Charlie Chaplin exchanged baleful glances at one another while their stomachs growled in unison. She went on to play scores of snooty maiden aunts, angry shop customers, gimlet-eyed landladies, and at least one over-the-hill streetwalker. Mira McKinney's last known film appearance was in 1955.

Frank Ferguson (Actor) .. Secret Service Man

Born: December 25, 1899
Died: September 12, 1978

Trivia: Busy character actor Frank Ferguson was able to parlay his pinched facial features, his fussy little moustache, and his bellows-like voice for a vast array of characterizations. Ferguson was equally effective as a hen-pecked husband, stern military leader, irascible neighbor, merciless employer, crooked sheriff, and barbershop hanger-on. He made his inaugural film appearance in Father is a Prince (1940) and was last seen on the big screen in The Great Sioux Massacre (1965). Ferguson proved himself an above-average actor by successfully pulling off the treacly scene in The Babe Ruth Story (1948) in which Babe (William Bendix) says "Hi, kid" to Ferguson's crippled son--whereupon the boy suddenly stands up and walks! Among Franklin Ferguson's hundreds of TV appearances were regular stints on the children's series My Friend Flicka (1956) and the nighttime soap opera Peyton Place (1964-68).

Cecil Weston (Actor) .. Woman Proprietor

Born: September 03, 1889
Died: August 07, 1976

Trivia: South African-born actress Cecil Weston came to America with her husband, cinematographer/producer Fred Balshofer, in the early teens. Weston's best-known talkie-film role was Mrs. Thatcher in the 1931 version of Huckleberry Finn. She went on to play scores of minor roles as mothers, dowagers, and nurses. After a few more character parts at 20th Century Fox, Cecil Weston retired in 1962.

Frank Hyers (Actor) .. Ollie

George Carleton (Actor) .. Morgue Attendant

Born: October 28, 1885
Died: September 23, 1950

Trivia: Scratch a banker, businessman, or state senator, and in 1940s Hollywood you would more than likely find George Carleton. Bespectacled, balding, and self-important despite his small stature, Carleton was all over the place during World War II and beyond, from portraying Dr. Paul Meredith, the inventor of a new oxygen respirator, in the Republic serial The Purple Monster Strikes (1945) to playing General Finney in Billy Wilder's witty A Foreign Affair (1948). Coming to films rather late in life, Carleton was a well-known Broadway and stock company actor who had originated the role of the Coroner in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1934). He had come to Hollywood in the early '30s as a dialogue director and coach. The veteran actor died in from a heart attack in 1950.

01:40 am - 03:40 am, Monday, December 22 on WNYW Movies! (5.2)