Tora! Tora! Tora!

Martin Balsam (Actor) .. Admiral Husband E. Kimmel

Born: November 04, 1919
Died: February 13, 1996
Birthplace: Bronx, New York, United States

Trivia: Bronx-raised actor Martin Balsam was the oldest of three children of a ladies' sportswear salesman. "Actors are bums" was dad's reaction when Balsam announced his intention of going into show business; still, young Martin took full advantage of lunch breaks from his "real" jobs to rehearse for amateur theatricals. After World War II, Balsam joined New York's Actors Studio, supporting himself by waiting on tables and ushering at Radio City Music Hall. During his formative years he was briefly married to actress Joyce Van Patten; their daughter Talia Balsam would later become a successful film and TV performer. Working steadily if not profitably in nightclubs and TV, Balsam made his first film, the Actors Studio-dominated On the Waterfront, in 1954. Averaging a movie and/or a play a year starting in 1957 (among his best-known film roles were Juror #1 in Twelve Angry Men [1957] and the unfortunate detective Arbogast in Psycho [1960]), Balsam went on to win a Tony for the Broadway play I Know You Can't Hear Me When the Water's Running, an Obie for the off-Broadway production Cold Storage, and an Academy Award for his performance as Jason Robards' older brother in the 1965 film version of A Thousand Clowns. Unfortunately for Balsam, the Oscar was as much a curse as a blessing on his career, and soon he was playing little more than variations on his Thousand Clowns role. In 1979, he was engaged by Norman Lear to play "lovable bigot" Archie Bunker's acerbic Jewish business partner Murray Klein on the CBS sitcom Archie Bunker's Place; he remained with the series until 1981. In 1991, Balsam appeared in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear, the remake of a film in which Balsam had co-starred (in an entirely different role) in 1962.

Sô Yamamura (Actor) .. Vice-Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

Born: February 24, 1910

Trivia: Versatile Japanese character actor So Yamamura made his first film appearance in 1946. Six years later he launched the directing phase of his career with the Eisenstein-influenced The Crab Canning Ship. In 1958, he made the first of a handful of English-language appearances in John Huston's Barbarian and the Geisha (1958). So Yamamura's later screen assignments include the roles of Admiral Yamamoto in the Japanese-American Pearl Harbor re-enactment Tora Tora Tora (1970) and taciturn auto executive Sakamoto in director Ron Howard's 1985 comedy Gung Ho.

Joseph Cotten (Actor) .. Henry L. Stimson, U.S. Secretary of War

Born: May 15, 1905
Died: February 06, 1994
Birthplace: Petersburg, Virginia, United States

Trivia: Born to a well-to-do Southern family, Joseph Cotten studied at the Hickman School of Expression in Washington D.C., and later sought out theater jobs in New York. He made his Broadway debut in 1930, and seven years later joined Orson Welles' progressive Mercury Theatre company, playing leads in such productions as Julius Caesar and Shoemaker's Holiday. He briefly left Welles in 1939 to co-star in Katharine Hepburn's Broadway comeback vehicle The Philadelphia Story. Cotten rejoinedWelles in Hollywood in 1940, making his feature-film debut as Jed Leland in Welles' Citizen Kane (1941). As a sort of private joke, Jed Leland was a dramatic critic, a profession which Cotten himself had briefly pursued on the Miami Herald in the late '20s. Cotten went on to play the kindly auto mogul Eugene Morgan in Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons in 1942, and both acted in and co-wrote Journey Into Fear, the film that Welles was working on when he was summarily fired by RKO. Cotten remained a close friend of Welles until the director's death in 1985; he co-starred with Welles in Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949) and played an unbilled cameo for old times' sake in the Welles-directed Touch of Evil (1958). A firmly established romantic lead by the early '40s, Cotten occasionally stepped outside his established screen image to play murderers (Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt [1943]) and surly drunkards (Under Capricorn [1949]). A longtime contractee of David O. Selznick, Cotten won a Venice Film Festival award for his performance in Selznick's Portrait of Jennie (1948). Cotten's screen career flagged during the 1950s and '60s, though he flourished on television as a guest performer on such anthologies as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Fireside Theatre, The Great Adventure, and as host of The 20th Century-Fox Hour (1955), The Joseph Cotten Show (1956), On Trial (1959), and Hollywood and the Stars (1963). He also appeared in several stage productions, often in the company of his second wife, actress Patricia Medina. In 1987, Cotten published his engagingly candid autobiography, Vanity Will Get You Somewhere. He died of pneumonia in 1994 at the age of 88.

Tatsuya Mihashi (Actor) .. Commander Minoru Genda

Born: January 01, 1924
Died: May 15, 2004

Trivia: Japanese character actor in English-language films, onscreen from the '60s.

E. G. Marshall (Actor) .. Lt. Colonel Rufus S. Bratton

Born: June 08, 1914
Died: August 24, 1998

Trivia: Actor E. G. Marshall started out on radio in his native Minnesota, then headed for New York and Broadway. After several years' solid stage service, Marshall began accepting small roles in such films as 13 Rue Madeline (1945) and Call Northside 777 (1947). A mainstay of television's so-called Golden Age, Marshall excelled in incisive, authoritative roles. Long before winning two Emmy awards for his portrayal of lawyer Lawrence Preston on TV's The Defenders (1961-65), Marshall was associated with fictional jurisprudence as the military prosecutor in The Caine Mutiny (1954) and as Juror #4 in Twelve Angry Men (1957). In contrast to his businesslike demeanor, Marshall is one of Hollywood's most notorious pranksters; he was never more impish than when he ad-libbed profanities and nonsequiturs while his lips were hidden by a surgical mask in the 1969-73 TV series The Bold Ones. The best of E.G. Marshall's work of the 1970s and 1980s includes the role of the straying husband in Woody Allen's Interiors (1977), the U.S. President in Superman II (1978) and General Eisenhower in the 1985 TV miniseries War and Remembrance. Continuing to flourish into the 1990s, Marshall was seen in the 1993 TV adaptation of Stephen King's The Tommyknockers, and was cast as Arthur Thurmond on the 1994 medical series Chicago Hope. Radio fans will remember E.G. Marshall as the unctuous host ("Pleasant dreeeaaammms") of the 1970s anthology The CBS Radio Mystery Theatre.

James Whitmore (Actor) .. Vice Admiral William F. 'Bull' Halsey Jr.

Born: February 06, 2009
Died: February 06, 2009
Birthplace: White Plains, New York, United States

Trivia: Whitmore attended Yale, where he joined the Yale Drama School Players and co-founded the Yale radio station. After serving in World War II with the Marines, he did some work in stock and then debuted on Broadway in 1947's Command Decision. He entered films in 1949, going on to play key supporting roles; occasionally, he also played leads. For his work in Battleground (1949), his second film, he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. He starred in the early '60s TV series "The Law and Mr. Jones." He won much acclaim for his work in the one-man stage show Give 'Em Hell, Harry!, in which he played Harry Truman; he reprised the role in the 1975 screen version, for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination. After 1980 his screen appearances were infrequent. He is the father of actor James Whitmore Jr.

Takahiro Tamura (Actor) .. Lt. Commander Mitsuo Fuchida

Born: August 31, 1928

Tōno Eijirō (Actor) .. Admiral Chuici Nagumo

Born: September 17, 1907

Wesley Addy (Actor) .. Lt. Commander Alwin D. Kramer

Born: August 04, 1913
Died: December 31, 1996

Trivia: Character actor Wesley Addy made his film debut in First Legion (1951). Often cast in cold, intimidating roles, Addy was a member in good standing of director Robert Aldrich's informal stock company. The actor was given plenty of elbow room in his supporting parts in Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955) and The Big Knife (1955), and had a memorable pre-credits bit as a migraine-prone movie producer ("Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy") in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Addy married actress Celeste Holm in 1961.

Frank Aletter (Actor) .. Lt. Commander Francis J. Thomas - USS Nevada

Born: January 14, 1926
Died: May 13, 2009
Birthplace: Queens, New York

Koreya Senda (Actor) .. Prime Minister Prince Fumimaro Konoye

Born: September 15, 1904

Leon Ames (Actor) .. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox

Born: January 20, 1903
Died: October 12, 1993

Trivia: Hollywood's favorite "dear old dad," Leon Ames began his stage career as a sleek, dreamy-eyed matinee idol in 1925. He was still billing himself under his real name, Leon Waycoff, when he entered films in 1931. His best early leading role was as the poet-hero of the stylish terror piece Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). In 1933, Ames was one of the founding members of the Screen Actors Guild, gaining a reputation amongst producers as a political firebrand--which may have been why his roles diminished in size during the next few years (Ironically, when Ames was president of the SAG, his conservatism and willingness to meet management halfway incurred the wrath of the union's more liberal wing). Ames played many a murderer and caddish "other man" before he was felicitously cast as the kindly, slightly befuddled patriarch in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). He would play essentially this same character throughout the rest of his career, starring on such TV series as Life With Father (1952-54) and Father of the Bride (1961). When, in 1963, he replaced the late Larry Keating in the role of Alan Young's neighbor on Mr. Ed, Ames' fans were astounded: his character had no children at all! Off screen, the actor was the owner of a successful, high profile Los Angeles automobile dealership. In 1963, he was the unwilling focus of newspaper headlines when his wife was kidnapped and held for ransom. In one of his last films, 1983's Testament, Leon Ames was reunited with his Life With Father co-star Lurene Tuttle.

Jun Usami (Actor) .. Admiral Zengo Yoshida

Kazuo Kitamura (Actor) .. Foreign Minister Yosuke Matsuoka

Keith Andes (Actor) .. General George C. Marshall

Born: July 12, 1920
Died: November 11, 2005
Birthplace: Ocean City, New Jersey

Trivia: The son of a real-estate man, blonde, athletic John Charles Andes became Keith Andes when signed to a contract by David O. Selznick in the 1940s. At that time, Andes, a recent Temple University graduate, was a member of the Army Air Force, touring in the all-serviceman stage production Winged Victory. His stage reputation rested on his rich baritone singing voice, which he seldom got to utilize in his film and TV work. After several failed pilot films, Andes was given his own starring series in 1959: the syndicated This Man Dawson, in which he played an ex-military man hired to clean up a corrupt police department in a unnamed city. To bone up on his role, Andes was permitted to sit in on the LAPD three-man board which determined who would be selected as police officers--and became so adept at his "job" that he ended up rejecting a few candidates! Andes' later TV work included a 13-week stint as Glynis Johns' long-suffering husband on the 1963 sitcom Glynis. Never completely abandoning the stage, Keith Andes co-starred with Lucille Ball in the 1960 Broadway musical Wildcat, and later in the decade headlined a touring company of Man of La Mancha.

Susumu Fujita (Actor) .. Rear Adm. Tamon Yamaguchi

Born: January 08, 1912

Edward Andrews (Actor) .. Admiral Harold R. Stark

Born: October 09, 1914
Died: March 08, 1985

Trivia: The son of a clergyman, round-faced character actor Edward Andrews took to the stage at age twelve. He made his Broadway debut in 1935's How Beautiful With Shoes; three years later he co-starred in the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Time of Your Life. Sporting spectacles from the early 1950s onward, Andrews was ideally cast as pompous, overly ambitious military officers, politicians and attorneys. His screen persona was malleable enough to allow for villainy (he played a viciously racist small-town politico in his first film, 1955's The Phenix City Story), though he preferred comedy, taking pride in a particular "finger-waggling" gesture of his that always resulted in loud audience laughter. In 1964, he co-starred with Kathy Nolan in the distaff McHale's Navy rip-off TV sitcom Broadside. Edward Andrews joined several fellow acting veterans in Gremlins (1985), his last film.

Bontarô Miyake (Actor) .. Adm. Koshiro Oikawa

Neville Brand (Actor) .. Lieutenant Harold Kaminsky

Born: August 13, 1920
Died: April 16, 1992

Trivia: The oldest child of an itinerant bridge builder, actor Neville Brand intended to make the military his career, and indeed spent ten years in uniform. During World War II, he became America's fourth most decorated soldier when he wiped out a German 50-caliber machine gun nest. He also decided that he'd seek out another line of work as soon as his hitch was up. Paying for acting classes with his GI Bill, he started his career off-Broadway. In 1949, he made his film debut in D.O.A., playing a psychotic hoodlum who delights in punching poisoned hero Edmond O'Brien in the stomach. Brand spent most of the early '50s at 20th Century Fox, a studio that surprisingly downplayed the actor's war record by shuttling him from one unstressed supporting role to another (though he's the principal villain in 1950's Where the Sidewalk Ends, he receives no screen credit). He fared far better on television, where he won the Sylvania Award for his portrayal of Huey Long in a 1958 telestaging of All the King's Men. Even better received was his portrayal of Al Capone on the TV series The Untouchables, a characterization he repeated in the 1961 theatrical feature The George Raft Story. In 1966, Brand briefly shed his bad-guy image to play the broadly hilarious role of bumbling Texas Ranger Reese Bennett on the TV Western series Laredo. His off-camera reputation for pugnacity and elbow-bending was tempered by his unswerving loyalty to his friends and his insatiable desire to better himself intellectually (his private library was one of the largest in Hollywood, boasting some 5000 titles). Fighting a losing battle against emphysema during his last years, Neville Brand died at the age of 70.

Leora Dana (Actor) .. Mrs. Kramer

Born: April 01, 1923
Died: December 13, 1983

Trivia: American actress Leora Dana entered films and TV after extensive stage work. Her prim, prematurely matronly features precluded leading-lady work for Leora, except for occasional appearances on such TV anthologies as The Alfred Hitchcock Show. Her film work consisted of sizeable supporting roles in films like 3:10 to Yuma (1957), Kings Go Forth (1958), and Pollyanna (1960), playing preacher Karl Malden's wife in the latter film. Additional film credits include The Group (1966), The Boston Strangler (1968), Change of Habit (1969) and Shoot the Moon (1981). Leora was also seen in a continuing role on the never-ending daytime drama Another World, and in 1976 she played the older Abigail Adams in the 13-part PBS series The Adams Chronicles (Kathryn Walker was the younger Abigail). At one time, Leora Dana was married to stage and film actor Kurt Kasznar.

Asao Uchida (Actor) .. General Hideki Tojo

Born: August 01, 1920

George Macready (Actor) .. Cordell Hull

Norman Alden (Actor) .. Major Truman Landon

Born: September 13, 1924
Died: July 27, 2012
Birthplace: Fort Worth, Texas

Trivia: General purpose actor Norman Alden was first seen by filmgoers in 1960's Operation Bottleneck. Most often seen in take-charge roles, Alden was critically acclaimed for his portrayal of a middle-aged retarded man in the NYC-filmed Andy (1965). The actor's series-TV credits include the thankless role of "Frank" on the "Electra Woman/Dynagirl" segments of Saturday morning's The Krofft Supershow. More artistically satisfying was Norman Alden's brief tenure as lawyer Al Cassidy on the Lee Grant TV sitcom Fay (1975).

Kazuko Ichikawa (Actor) .. Geisha in Kagoshima

Walter Brooke (Actor) .. Captain Theodore Wilkinson

Born: October 23, 1914
Died: August 20, 1986
Birthplace: New York City, New York

Trivia: It's hard to believe that American actor Walter Brooke, who always looked about 45 years old, actually made his first film in 1942 when he was all of 27. Confined for the most part to B productions after his film debut in Bullet Scars (1942), Brooke's film roles improved as he grew into his familiar businesslike demeanor, as in his plot-motivating character in Conquest of Space (1953). Character actors never seem to be out of work, and Brooke was no exception. A full two decades after his film bow, he was still getting good parts in films like The Graduate (1967) (as Mr. Maguire) and Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). In between film assignments, Brooke kept busy on television. Among his many guest-starring spots (including the 1963 Twilight Zone episode "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain"), Walter Brooke played Bill Herbert for two years on the early serial One Man's Family (1950-52); he was a regular two other soap operas, Three Steps to Heaven (1953) and Paradise Bay (1965); and he was seen as District Attorney Scanlon on the adventure series The Green Hornet (1966), costarring with Van Williams and a young Bruce Lee.

Rick Cooper (Actor) .. Lieutenant George Welch

Karl Lukas (Actor) .. Capt. Harold C. Train - USS California

Born: August 21, 1919
Died: January 16, 1995

Trivia: Character actor Karl Lukas was most famous for playing "Lindstrom" opposite Henry Fonda in the Broadway version of Mister Roberts(1948). While he spent most of his four-decade-long career on stage, he also dabbled in television and the occasional feature film. Lukas made his screen debut playing the "inspector" in the Lucille Ball/Desi Arnaz comedy The Long Long Trailer (1954). His other film credits include The Watermelon Man (1970), The Shaggy D.A. (1976), and Memories of Me (1988). Lukas also guest-starred on such television series as Family Affair, St. Elsewhere, and Little House on the Prairie.

June Dayton (Actor) .. Miss Ray Cave

Born: August 24, 1923
Died: June 13, 1994

Trivia: Primarily an actress of stage and television, June Dayton occasionally appeared in feature films. Born Mary June Wetzel, she took her stage name from her native Dayton, OH, and made her Broadway debut in the 1940s. Those remembering the early-'50s television series The Aldrich Family will recognize her for playing Mary Aldrich during the 1952-1953 season. After that, she guest starred on numerous series through the mid-'70s, including Inner Sanctum, My Favorite Martian, Land of the Giants, and The Six Million Dollar Man. She would also show up in a few television movies such as Letters From Three Lovers (1973) and Something for Joey (1977). She made her feature film debut in 1963, appearing in the Norman Vincent Peale biopic One Man's Way and Twilight of Honor.

Ron Masak (Actor) .. Lt. Laurence Ruff - USS Nevada

Born: July 01, 1936
Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois

Trivia: Often introduced as "one of America's most familiar faces," it's likely that you've caught a glimpse of Ron Masak either in one of his over 300 appearances in various television shows, on that commercial that lingers in the back of your memory somewhere (he was once blessed with the moniker "king of commercials" and was the voice of the Vlassic Pickle Stork for 15 years), or maybe in one of his 15 feature film appearances. Whatever you might recognize him from, if you don't remember his name, he's the guy that you know you've seen somewhere before, but just might not be able to place where. A native of Chicago, IL (he was once offered a contract with the Chicago White Sox by Hall-of-Famer Rogers Hornsby), Masak was classically trained as an actor at the Windy City's own CCC. A tireless performer, Masak found an initial platform for his talents in the Army, where he toured the world entertaining in an all-Army show in which he served as writer, performer, and director. Masak became well-known not only for his acting abilities, but for the fact that he was a dedicated performer who never missed a show. Proving himself adept at roles ranging from Shakespeare to his almost decade-long stint as the sheriff on Murder She Wrote, Masak thrived in theater and in commercial work around Chicago in the late '50s and early '60s.After a few minor roles in such television series as Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Monkees, and The Flying Nun (not to mention what many consider to be one of the earliest Elvis impersonations on the Spade Cooley Show in 1958), Masak was spotted by producer Harry Ackerman early in his career and went to California to audition for a lead in a pilot. Though that particular prospect fell through, Masak was introduced to John Sturges, a meeting which resulted in his feature debut in the cold-war thriller Ice Station Zebra (1968). Masak's work as an emcee is another testament to his universal appeal and versatile likeability; he has served as host for some of the biggest names in show business, including such talents as Kenny Rogers and Billy Crystal. Masak also starred in four of the most successful sales motivational videos of all time, including Second Effort with Vince Lombardi and Ya Gotta Believe with Tommy Lasorda (which Masak also wrote and directed). The first recipient of MDA's Humanitarian of the Year Award, Masak's work as field announcer for the Special Olympics and his eight-year stint as host of The Jerry Lewis Telethon represents only a fraction of his remarkable work as a compassionate philanthropist, and though Masak's film work may not be as prolific or as frequent as his extensive television work, his roles in such films as Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) are always memorable and constantly ring true with an appeal that often leaves a lasting impression, even though his screen time may be brief and his characters secondary.

Jeff Donnell (Actor) .. Cornelia

Born: July 10, 1921
Died: April 11, 1988

Trivia: Miss Jeff Donnell, as she was often billed, was signed by Columbia Pictures almost immediately after her graduation from Yale Drama School. Though likeable and talented enough for leading roles, the toothy, frizzy-haired Ms. Donnell was most often seen as the heroine's best friend or as kooky comedy relief. Columbia certainly kept her busy during her ten-year stay at that studio, casting her in such "A" pictures as My Sister Eileen (1942) and In a Lonely Place (1952) and "B"s like The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942) and Thief of Damascus (1952); she is particularly amusing in the latter film as Scheherezade, garrulously insisting upon telling her Arabian Nights stories to a villainous caliph whether he likes it or not. From 1954 through 1956, Jeff was married to another longtime Columbia contractee, Aldo Ray. On television, Jeff spent four years on The George Gobel Show as Gobel's wife, "Spooky Old Alice." Jeff Donnell's last regular TV work was the recurring role of Sheila Fields on the daytime soap opera General Hospital.

Shunichi Nakamura (Actor) .. Kameto Kurojima

Richard Erdman (Actor) .. Colonel Edward F. French

Born: March 16, 2019
Died: March 16, 2019
Birthplace: Enid, Oklahoma, United States

Trivia: The son of an itinerant piano tuner-father and a restaurateur-mother, Richard Erdman was born in Oklahoma and grew up in Colorado. Having taken drama lessons since his early childhood, Erdman was 15 when he was brought to Hollywood by his mother to be "discovered." It wasn't until he'd held down an interim job as a sports reporter for the Los Angeles Examiner that Erdman finally appeared in his first film, Warner Bros.' Janie (1944). Rapidly outgrowing juvenile roles, Erdman played character parts in Hollywood films like Stalag 17 (1953) and in such European productions as Four Days Leave (1950) and Face of Fire (1959). In 1961, Erdman co-starred on the short-lived sitcom The Tab Hunter Show, playing Tab's millionaire-playboy buddy, Peter Fairchild III. In 1973, Erdman made his big-screen directorial debut with The Brothers O'Toole. Since that time, Richard Erdman has kept busy as a voice-over actor, offering a wide range of vocal characterizations for dozens of TV cartoon series, as well as the 1994 animated feature film The Pagemaster.

Hiroshi Nihon'yanagi (Actor) .. Rear Adm. Chuichi Hara

Jerry Fogel (Actor) .. Lt. Commander William Outerbridge

Born: January 17, 1936

Carl Reindel (Actor) .. Lieutenant Kenneth Taylor

Born: January 20, 1935
Died: September 04, 2009

Elven Havard (Actor) .. Mess Attendant 3rd Class Doris Miller

Edmon Ryan (Actor) .. Rear Admiral Bellinger

Born: January 01, 1904
Died: January 01, 1984

Toshio Hosokawa (Actor) .. Lt. Cmdr. Shigeharu Murata

Born: October 23, 1955

Hisao Toake (Actor) .. Saburo Kurusu

Born: September 08, 1908

Toru Abe (Actor) .. Rear Adm. Takijiro Onishi

Born: March 28, 1917

Hiroshi Akutagawa (Actor) .. Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Koichi Kido

Born: January 01, 1919
Died: January 01, 1981

Leon Alton (Actor) .. Official

Born: August 23, 1907

Kiyoshi Atsumi (Actor) .. Cook #1

Died: August 04, 1996

Trivia: Although almost unknown outside his native Japan, comic actor Kiyoshi Atsumi played the country's most beloved character, Tora-jiro Kuruma (more familiarly known as Tora-san), in what the Guiness Book of Records has noted as the world's longest-running film series in which the same actor played the title role. At the height of Atsumi's popularity, one critic claimed that the actor's face "is known better than the emperor himself." Atsumi learned to act on-stage during the 1950s. The wandering peddler Tora-san was created by Atsumi and director Yoji Yamada for a 1968 television series. Instead they made him a movie star for Shochiku Studios in 1969 with Otoko wa Tsuraiy (It's Hard Being a Man) (1969). The series ran until 1995 and all but six episodes were ranked as the most popular and lucrative Japanese films of the year. Though Atsumi was not a handsome man -- many wags find the urge to compare his face and body with a potato -- his rebellious, free-spirited ways with the ladies and his sly tendency to satirize uptight "face-saving" with his audaciously irresponsible manner, provided many salarymen and women with delightful alter egos. Atsumi passed away from lung cancer on August 4, 1996. Atsumi was 68.

Harold Conway (Actor) .. Eugene Dooman - US Embassy Counselor

Francis De Sales (Actor) .. Capt. Arthur H. McCollum

Born: March 23, 1912

Trivia: American actor Francis de Sales appeared on stage, screen, radio and television. He got his start on Broadway as one of the original "Dead End" kids. He later starred in his own radio series and from there moved into television until the late 1950s when he started his film career. De Sales continued appearing in films through the mid '70s.

Robert Shayne (Actor)

Born: January 01, 1900
Died: November 29, 1992

Trivia: The son of a wholesale grocer who later became one of the founders of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Robert Shayne studied business administration at Boston University. Intending to study for the ministry, Shayne opted instead to work as field secretary for the Unitarian Layman's League. He went on to sell real estate during the Florida Land Boom of the 1920s before heading northward to launch an acting career. After Broadway experience, Shayne was signed to a film contract at RKO radio in 1934. When this led nowhere, Shayne returned to the stage. While appearing with Katharine Hepburn in the Philip Barry play Without Love, Shayne was again beckoned to Hollywood, this time by Warner Bros. Most of his feature film roles under the Warner banner were of the sort that any competent actor could have played; he was better served by the studio's short subjects department, which starred him in a series of 2-reel "pocket westerns" built around stock footage from earlier outdoor epics. He began free-lancing in 1946, playing roles of varying size and importance at every major and minor outfit in Hollywood. In 1951, Shayne was cast in his best-known role: Inspector Henderson on the long-running TV adventure series Superman. He quit acting in the mid-1970s to become an investment banker with the Boston Stock Exchange. The resurgence of the old Superman series on television during this decade thrust Shayne back into the limelight, encouraging him to go back before the cameras. He was last seen in a recurring role on the 1990 Superman-like weekly series The Flash. Reflecting on his busy but only fitfully successful acting career, Robert Shayne commented in 1975 that "It was work, hard and long; a terrible business when things go wrong, a rewarding career when things go right."

George DeNormand (Actor) .. Official

Born: September 22, 1903
Died: December 23, 1976

Trivia: Although not as remembered as Yakima Canutt or even Cliff Lyons, brawny George DeNormand became one of the founding fathers of modern movie stunt work. In films from the early '30s, DeNormand performed stunts and played bit roles in scores of action thrillers, B-Westerns, and serials, working mostly for that memorable factory of thrills, Republic Pictures. His career lasted well into the television era and he was especially visible on such shows as The Cisco Kid, Range Rider, and Sky King. Married to writer/director Wanda Tuchock (1898-1985), DeNormand spent his last years at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.

Richard Krisher (Actor)

Born: January 01, 1939
Died: January 21, 2000

Jason Robards (Actor)

Born: December 31, 1892
Died: April 04, 1963

Trivia: He studied theater at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After establishing himself prominently on the American stage, he began appearing in silents beginning with The Gilded Lily (1921). He appeared in more than 100 films, the last of which was the Elvis Presley vehicle Wild in the Country (1961). He starred in a number of silents, often as a clean-living rural hero; in the sound era he began playing character roles, almost always as an arch villain. Due to a serious eye infection, he was absent from the big screen in the '50s. He was the father of actor Jason Robards, with whom he appeared on Broadway in 1958 in The Disenchanted.

Glenn Dixon (Actor) .. Officer at Signing of Pact

Born: December 27, 1917

James B. Douglas (Actor) .. French's Subordinate

Paul H. Frees (Actor) .. Japanese Ambassador Kichisaburo Nomura

Born: June 22, 1920
Died: November 02, 1986

Trivia: In his prime--which lasted a good 40 years--voice artist Paul Frees was not so much ubiquitous as inescapable. It was literally impossible during the 1960s and most of the 1970s to turn on the TV on any given night and not hear the ineluctable Mr. Frees. Blessed with a versatile voicebox from an early age, Frees first came to public attention as "Buddy Green," the name he was using when he won a radio impersonation contest. He toured in vaudeville, then returned to radio as star of The Player, a syndicated anthology series in which he played all the roles. He went to work as actor, announcer and narrator for such series as Suspense and Escape; he also made a number of appearances on comedy programs, usually playing a hammy Orson Wellesian actor (one such character was actually named "Lawson Bells"). In bandleader Spike Jones' memorable rendition of the old torch song "My Old Flame," Frees recites the lyrics in the style of a Peter Lorre-like pyromaniac. Frees began working in films in 1948, sometimes as an on-screen actor (His Kind of Woman, The Thing, War of the Worlds, Suddenly, The Shaggy Dog) but most often in a variety of voiceover capacities. When Chill Wills was unavailable to provide his talking-mule voice in Francis in the Haunted House (1955), Frees replaced him, accurately recreating Wills' folksy drawl; when producer George Pal was forced to rerecord most of the male actors in Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961), Frees supplied all the voices; and whenever Japanese film star Toshiro Mifune appeared in an English-language film like Grand Prix (1969), he would insist that his heavily-accented voice be redubbed by Frees, who "sounds more like me than I do." In addition to his TV-ad work as Poppin' Fresh, Mr. Goodwrench et. al, Frees was heard as the "late, fabulously wealthy" John Beresford Tipton on The Millionaire (1955-60). Frees' vocal activities in the realm of animated cartoons is so extensive that to list all his credits would require five single-spaced columns, a few examples are: Boris Badenov and Captain Peter Peachfuzz in Rocky and His Friends, Inspector Fenwick in Dudley Do-Right, Oliver Wendell Clutch in Calvin and the Colonel, Flat-Top in The Dick Tracy Show, the title character in Squiddly Diddly, Morocco Mole in Secret Squirrel, John Lennon in The Beatles, and Ludwig Von Drake in Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. In addition, Frees worked in virtually everything ever produced by satirist Stan Freberg, including the legendary 1963 LP History of the United States. By the mid-1970s, Frees was averaging $1 million per year--and was only working six months out of the year, spending the remaining six months vacationing on his own South Sea island. According to most sources, Frees was married six times. Since his death in 1986, Paul Frees' legacy has been carried on by a wealth of imitators, none of whom have quite come up to the standard set by The Master.

Bobby Gilbert (Actor) .. Official

Torahiko Hamada (Actor) .. Admiral

Andrew Hughes (Actor) .. Embassy Delegation Employee of Japan

Hisashi Igawa (Actor) .. Lt. Mitsuo Matsuzaki

Born: November 17, 1936

Lex Johnson (Actor) .. Army Officer

Robert Karnes (Actor) .. Maj. John H. Dillon

Born: January 01, 1916
Died: January 01, 1979

Kenner G. Kemp (Actor) .. Civilian Official Seated at Meeting Table

Berry Kroeger (Actor) .. U.S. Army General

Born: October 26, 1912
Died: January 04, 1991

Trivia: Berry Kroeger (pronounced "Kroger", not "Kreeger") got his start in network radio, where his velvety voice was heard announcing several major dramatic anthologies; he also played a variety of leading radio roles, including the heroic soldier-of-fortune The Falcon. While appearing on Broadway in Saint Joan, Kroeger was discovered by filmmaker William Wellman, who cast the actor in The Iron Curtain. This 1948 Cold-War film represented the first of many unsympathetic movie assignments for Kroeger, ranging from the smarmy Packett in director Joseph L. Lewis' Gun Crazy (1949) to the mad-scientist mentor of Bruce Dern in The Incredible Two Headed Transplant (1971). Kroeger's marked resemblance to Sydney Greenstreet served him well when he essayed a Greenstreet take-off in "Maxwell Smart, Private Eye," an Emmy-winning episode of TV's Get Smart. Most of Barry Kroeger's film characters can be summed up in a single word: slime.

Ken Lynch (Actor) .. Rear Adm. John H. Newton

Born: January 01, 1910
Died: January 01, 1990

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from the '50s; he often played military men, sheriffs, or policemen.

Hideo Murota (Actor) .. Japanese Pilot

Born: October 07, 1937

John Pedrini (Actor) .. Official

Steve Pendleton (Actor) .. Destroyer Captain

Born: September 16, 1908

Charlie Picerni (Actor) .. Burning Sailor

Walter Reed (Actor) .. Vice Adm. William S. Pye

Born: January 01, 1916
Died: August 20, 2001

Trivia: He was Walter Reed Smith on his birth certificate, but when he decided to pursue acting, the Washington-born hopeful dropped the "Smith" and retained his first and middle name professionally. Bypassing the obvious medical roles that an actor with his hospital-inspired cognomen might have accepted for publicity purposes, Reed became a light leading man in wartime films like Seven Days Leave (1942). Banking on his vague resemblance to comic-book hero Dick Tracy, Reed starred in the 1951 Republic serials Flying Disc Man from Mars and Government Agents vs. Phantom Legion. He was also seen as mine supervisor Bill Corrigan in Superman vs. the Mole Men (1951), a 58-minute B-film which represented George Reeves' first appearance as the Man of Steel. Walter Reed continued as a journeyman "authority" actor until 1970's Tora! Tora! Tora!

Bob Shayne (Actor) .. Cmdr. William H. Buracker

Ed Sheehan (Actor) .. Brig. Gen. Howard C. Davidson

G. D. Spradlin (Actor) .. Cmdr. Maurice E. Curts

Born: January 01, 1926
Died: July 24, 2011

Trivia: Before making his career switch to acting, G.D. Spradlin had been a prosperous Texas business tycoon and a highly respected history teacher. In films from 1968's Will Penny, the actor is perhaps best remembered for his work as on-the-take Senator Pat Geary in The Godfather, Part 2 (1974). His regal, assured bearing made him a natural for such forceful characterizations as LBJ in the 1990 TV movie Robert Kennedy and His Times. Spradlin has also played his share of high-ranking military officers, most memorably in Apocalypse Now (1979). A somewhat more avuncular G. D. Spradlin was seen in the role of Baptist minister (and erstwhile movie producer) Reverend Lemon in Ed Wood (1994).

Hiroshi Tom Tanaka (Actor) .. Japanese Midget Submarine Crewman

Larry Thor (Actor) .. Maj. Gen. Frederick L. Martin

Born: August 27, 1916

Trivia: Larry Thor was a sometime movie and television actor who started his professional entertainment career doing voice work, as an announcer on radio. Born in 1916, he grew up in Lundar, Manitoba, Canada, in what was basically an Icelandic village. He broke into radio in 1937, working at various stations for a decade after, until he arrived in Los Angeles in 1946. His rich, resonant voice gave him a career as an announcer, with occasional bits of acting. In the early '50s, he crossed over into film work when he played a sports announcer in the 20th Century Fox baseball biopic The Pride of St. Louis, telling of the life of pitcher Dizzy Dean (Dan Dailey).Although he occasionally played announcers in subsequent movies, including The Kid From Left Field (1953) and Zero Hour! (1957), Thor also moved into straight acting roles, usually smaller or supporting parts where he could play authority figures -- he was in two key early productions of Roger Corman, Five Guns West and The Fast and the Furious. Once in a while, Thor also got to play a major role, such as that of Major Coulter, the military physician in Bert I. Gordon's The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), whose death scene is one of the highlights of the movie's low-budget thrills.Much of Thor's career from the mid-'50s onward, especially after the decline of radio, was spent on television, in every kind of series from M Squad to My Three Sons. He also made recordings, especially of children's records, and was still doing announcing work in documentaries and industrial films right into the 1970s. Typical of the odd arc of his career, a result of his specialized talent, in 1970, the same year in which he appeared in Fox's Tora! Tora! Tora!, he also was the voice of Kakafonous A. Dischord in The Phantom Tollbooth. He passed away in 1976.

George Tobias (Actor) .. Captain on Flight Line at Hickam Field

Born: July 14, 1901
Died: February 27, 1980

Trivia: Average in looks but above average in talent, New York native George Tobias launched his acting career at his hometown's Pasadena Playhouse. He then spent several years with the Provincetown Players before moving on to Broadway and, ultimately, Hollywood. Entering films in 1939, Tobias' career shifted into first when he was signed by Warner Bros., where he played everything from good-hearted truck drivers to shifty-eyed bandits. Tobias achieved international fame in the 1960s by virtue of his weekly appearances as long-suffering neighbor Abner Kravitz on the TV sitcom Bewitched; he'd previously been a regular on the obscure Canadian adventure series Hudson's Bay. Though he frequently portrayed browbeaten husbands, George Tobias was a lifelong bachelor.

Arthur Tovey (Actor) .. Officer at Signing of Pact

Died: October 20, 2000

Trivia: From a scene with Charlie Chaplin to a bit part with Elvis Presley to a familiar role as a butler in Madonna's Who's That Girl, Arthur Roland Tovey's career spanned much of the 20th century, during which he worked with some of its biggest stars. Tovey made his film debut in the 1922 Marion Davies feature Yolanda. A longtime Hollywood extra and bit actor, Tovey also doubled for Leslie Howard in the classic Gone With the Wind. In addition to his career as an actor, Tovey was a longtime member of the Musicians Local 47 and the Screen Actors Guild, and also served in the U.S. Army during WWII. In recent years, he made the most of his appearances on television, appearing on programs such as ER and Married With Children until well into his nineties. Arthur Roland Tovey died of natural causes at his home in Van Nuys, CA, on October 20, 2000. He was 95.

Bob Turnbull (Actor) .. Desk Sergeant

Harlan Warde (Actor) .. Brig. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow

Born: January 01, 1917
Died: March 01, 1980

Trivia: American general purpose actor Harlan Warde came to films in 1941 and remained before the cameras until the mid-'60s. During WWII, Warde played many a young man in uniform. Afterwards, he showed up in supporting roles as detectives, doctors, and ministers. One of Harlan Warde's last assignments was the recurring part of Sheriff Brannon on the TV Western series The Virginian (1962-1971).

David Westberg (Actor) .. Ens. Edgar M. Fair

Bruce Wilson (Actor) .. Pvt. Joseph Lockard

Born: February 03, 1942

Bill Zuckert (Actor) .. Adm. James O. Richardson

Born: December 18, 1915
Died: January 23, 1997

Trivia: American actor Bill Zuckert's long career included appearances on stage, screen, radio, and television. He made his acting debut on radio in 1941. During the 1970s, he made frequent television appearances on programs ranging from Dynasty to The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Little House on the Prairie. Zuckert made his last appearance in two films of 1994, Ace Ventura, Pet Detective and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. Zuckert was an active member of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. For the latter, he played a key role in developing a new member program. Zuckert also launched the practice of holding casting showcases for members of both guilds. Zuckert died of pneumonia in Woodland Hills, CA, at age 76.

Mike Daneen (Actor) .. Edward Crocker - US Embassy First Secretary

02:35 am - 06:00 am, Friday, May 29 on WNYW Movies! (5.2)