Blind Spot

Chester Morris (Actor) .. Jeffrey Andrews

Born: February 16, 1901
Died: September 11, 1970
Birthplace: New York, New York, United States

Trivia: An actor with slicked-back hair, a jutting jaw and a hooked nose, Morris was the son of well-known Broadway performers. As a child he appeared in silents and as a teenager he began a stage acting career; he made his Broadway debut in 1918. He debuted onscreen in Alibi (1929), for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination. He went on to a busy screen career, usually in gun-toting roles. He is best remembered as Boston Blackie, the character he played in a series of 13 films. He retired from the screen in 1956, returning in 1970 to play the fight manager in The Great White Hope (1970). Shortly thereafter he died of an overdose of barbiturates.

Steven Geray (Actor) .. Lloyd Harrison

Born: November 10, 1899
Died: December 26, 1973

Trivia: Czech character actor Steven Geray was for many years a member in good standing of the Hungarian National Theater. He launched his English-speaking film career in Britain in 1935, then moved to the U.S. in 1941. His roles ranged from sinister to sympathetic, from "A" productions like Gilda (1946) to potboilers like El Paso (1949). He flourished during the war years, enjoying top billing in the moody little romantic melodrama So Dark the Night (1946), and also attracting critical praise for his portrayal of Dirk Stroeve in The Moon and Sixpence (1942). Many of Geray's film appearances in the 1950s were unbilled; when he was given screen credit, it was usually as "Steve Geray." Geray's busy career in film and television continued into the 1960s. Steven Geray worked until he had obviously depleted his physical strength; it was somewhat sad to watch the ailing Geray struggle through the western horror pic Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1965).

Sid Tomack (Actor)

Born: January 01, 1906
Died: January 01, 1962

Constance Dowling (Actor) .. Evelyn Green

Born: January 01, 1919
Died: January 01, 1969

Trivia: Discovered by producer Samuel Goldwyn in Elia Kazan's flop play The Strings, My Lord, Are False (1942), hazel-eyed Constance Dowling was ushered into the screen version of Knickerbocker Holiday (1944) and Danny Kaye's Up in Arms (1944). But there was something icy and disturbing about her that didn't exactly spell musical comedy, and Dowling made more of an impact playing scheming women (i.e. the blackmailing torch singer Mavis Marlowe in the 1946 film noir Black Angel, in which she is summarily bumped off). Like her sister Doris Dowling, Constance came to tire of Hollywood typecasting, however, and found a more liberating venue for her talents in Italian films. She returned to Hollywood in the 1950s, however, and married Hungarian writer/producer Ivan Tors, the producer of her 1954 science fiction melodrama Gog. Constance Dowling's early death in 1969 was attributed to cardiac arrest.

James Bell (Actor)

Born: January 01, 1889
Died: January 01, 1973

Trivia: Character actor James Bell has appeared in many films during his 40-year film career. He was usually cast as a sympathetic character. The Virginia-born Bell first attended the Virginia Polytechnic Institute before making his theatrical debut in 1921. Eleven years later he made his film debut in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. Most of the films he appeared in were made during the '40s and '50s.

Paul E. Burns (Actor)

Born: January 26, 1881
Died: May 17, 1967

Trivia: Wizened character actor Paul E. Burns tended to play mousey professional men in contemporary films and unshaven layabouts in period pictures. Bob Hope fans will recall Burns' con brio portrayal of boozy desert rat Ebeneezer Hawkins in Hope's Son of Paleface (1952), perhaps his best screen role. The general run of Burns' screen assignments can be summed up by two roles at both ends of his career spectrum: he played "Loafer" in D.W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln (1930) and "Bum in Park" in Barefoot in the Park (1967).

12:15 am - 01:45 am, Sunday, November 9 on Turner Classic Movies ()