The War of the Worlds

Lewis Martin (Actor) .. Pastor Matthew Collins

Born: January 01, 1894
Died: January 01, 1969

Robert Cornthwaite (Actor) .. Dr. Pryor

Born: April 28, 1917
Died: July 20, 2006

Trivia: Already a character player in his 30s, American actor Robert Cornwaithe was frequently called upon to play scientific and learned types in such films as War of the Worlds (1953) and The Forbin Project (1971). He was also busy on TV, portraying lawyers, officials and the like on such series as The Andy Griffith Show, Batman (in the "Archer" episode with Art Carney), Gidget, Laverne and Shirley and The Munsters. Cornwaithe earned his niche in the Science Fiction Film Hall of Fame for his performance in The Thing (1951); grayed up, bearded, and looking suspiciously Russian, the actor played the foolhardy Professor Carrington, whose insipidly idealistic efforts to communicate with the extraterrestrial "Thing" nearly gets him killed. In honor of this performance, Robert Cornwaithe was cast as a similar well-meaning scientist in "Mant," the giant-insect film within a film in Joe Dante's Matinee (1993), wherein Cornwaithe shared screen time with two equally uncredited horror-film icons, William Schallert and Kevin McCarthy.

Sandro Giglio (Actor) .. Dr. Bilderbeck

Born: May 09, 1900

Paul Birch (Actor) .. Alonzo Hogue

Born: January 01, 1910
Died: May 24, 1969

Trivia: Flinty character actor Paul Birch was strictly a Broadway performer until switching to films in 1952. It didn't take long for Birch to be typecast in science fiction films after playing one of the three "vaporized" locals at the beginning of 1953's The War of the Worlds. Birch's more memorable cinema fantastique assignments included The Beast With a Million Eyes (1955), The Day the World Ended (1956), The 27th Day (1957), and Queen of Outer Space (1958). In 1957, he played the melancholy leading role in Roger Corman's Not of This Earth (1957). Not exclusively confined to flying-saucer epics, Paul Birch was also seen in such roles as the Police Chief in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and the Mayor in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).

Jack Kruschen (Actor) .. Salvatore

Born: March 20, 1922
Died: April 02, 2002
Birthplace: Winnipeg, Manitoba

Trivia: Husky, bushy-mustached, frequently unkempt Canadian actor Jack Kruschen appeared steadily on radio from 1938 onward. He began playing small film roles in 1949, often cast as minor villains and braying bullies. He became a cult favorite after playing one of the three earliest victims (the Hispanic one) of the Martian death ray in George Pal's War of the Worlds (1953). His larger film roles included MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer in the Carol Lynley version of Harlow (1965), and the remonstrative physician neighbor of Jack Lemmon in Billy Wilder's The Apartment (1960); the latter assignment copped a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar nomination for Kruschen. A tireless TV performer, Kruschen has guested in a variety of roles on most of the top video offerings, and was a regular in the 1977 sitcom Busting Loose, playing the father of Adam Arkin. Relatively inactive after 1980, Jack Kruschen made a welcome return in PBS' 1993 adaptation of Arthur Miller's The American Clock.

Vernon Rich (Actor) .. Col. Heffner

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

Houseley Stevenson Jr. (Actor) .. General's Aide

Paul Frees (Actor) .. Radio Announcer

Born: June 22, 1920

Gene Barry (Actor) .. Dr. Clayton Forrester

Born: June 14, 1919
Died: December 09, 2009
Birthplace: New York City, New York

Trivia: The son of a New York jeweler, American actor Gene Barry emerged from his pinchpenny Depression-era childhood with an instatiable desire for the finer things in life. The acting profession seemed to hold out promise for fame and (especially) fortune. Making the rounds of theatrical agents in the 1940s, Barry, no matter his true financial situation, showed up dressed to the nines; grim reality soon set in, however, and the actor found himself clearing little more than $2000 a year -- on good years. When stage work seemed to yield nothing but bits, Barry turned to early television, then signed a movie contract in 1951. The only truly worthwhile film to star Barry was 1953's War of the Worlds, but even with top billing he had to play second banana to George Pal's marvelous special effects. Finally in 1956, Herb Gordon of Ziv Productions asked Barry if he'd like to star in a western. The actor resisted -- after all, everyone was doing westerns -- until Gordon pointed out that role would include a derby hat, a cane, and an erudite Eastern personality. Barry was enchanted by this, and from 1957 through 1961 he starred on the popular series Bat Masterson. The strain of filming a weekly western compelled Barry to declare that he'd never star on a series again - until he was offered the plum role of millionaire police detective Amos Burke on Burke's Law. This series ran from 1963 through 1965, and might have gone on longer had the producers not tried and failed to turn it into a Man From UNCLE type spy show. Barry's next series, Name of the Game, was another success (it ran from 1969 through 1971), and wasn't quite as grueling in that the actor only had to appear in one out of every three episodes. Always the epitome of diamond-in-the-rough masculinity, Barry astounded his fans in the mid 1980s by accepting the role of an aging homosexual in the stage musical version of the French film comedy La Cage Aux Follies. Yet another successful run followed, after which Barry went into semi-retirement, working only when he felt like it. In 1993, Gene Barry was back for an unfortunately brief revival of Burke's Law, which was adjusted for the actor's age by having him avoid the action and concentrate on the detecting; even so, viewers had a great deal of difficulty believing that Burke (or Barry) was as old as he claimed to be.

Ann Robinson (Actor) .. Sylvia Van Buren

Born: January 01, 1931

Trivia: Ann Robinson was one of the few movie actresses who could lay claim to being a true "child of Hollywood;" she was born in the heart of Tinseltown, at Hollywood Hospital. After some experience in school plays, Robinson turned professional in the early 1950s. She was signed by Paramount, where she was second-billed in her very first film, the sci-fi classic War of the Worlds. Upon completing this assignment in mid-1952, Robinson left for Warner Bros., where she co-starred with Jack Webb in the 1953 film version of Webb's popular Dragnet TV series. Towards the end of 1953, Paramount finally released War of the Worlds; hiring Robinson to make a promotional tour for the film, the studio was compelled to pay her a far higher salary than she'd received as an actress. She then inked a contract with independent producer Eddie Small, who featured her in a brace of westerns and loaned her services to television producers. Her small-screen credits include a recurring role on the Saturday-morning adventure series Fury and a guest stint as "Suzerain of Planet Herculon" in Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. Robinson retired from films in 1959 when she married a bullfighter and moved to Mexico. After raising her family, Ann Robinson returned to acting, co-starring in Midnight Movie Massacre (1988) and reprising her War of the Worlds role of Sylvia van Buren in the spoofish direct-to-video Attack of the B-Movie Monsters.

Les Tremayne (Actor) .. Gen. Mann

Born: April 16, 1913
Died: December 19, 2003

Trivia: Born in London, Les Tremayne moved to America in his early teens. Educated at Northwestern, Columbia and UCLA, Tremayne went on the stage in the early 1930s, where his distinguished demeanor and mellifluous voice served him well. He rose to stardom on radio, appearing in literally thousands of "Golden Age" broadcasts, notably as star of the long-running anthology The First Nighter Program. In films from 1951, Tremayne brought a large dose of sober credibility to many an otherwise hard-to-swallow science fiction opus. At his best as General Mann in War of the Worlds (1953)--the General's explanation of the Martian's invasion strategy remains one of the finest pieces of pure exposition in all of "fantastic" cinema--Tremayne was also successful in maintaining his dignity in cheapies of the Angry Red Planet (1959) and Slime People (1965) variety. The actor's contributions to the sci-fi genre were hosannahed in the direct-to-video production The Attack of the B-Movie Monsters (1985). In addition, Tremayne showed up in several non-genre efforts, usually in small but substantial roles like the auctioneer in North by Northwest (Tremayne's single scene in this 1959 Hitchcock classic also featured his old First Nighter colleague Olan Soule). Busiest on television as a commercial spokesman and voiceover artist, Tremayne found time to appear on the prime-time TV version of radio's One Man's Family (1951); as Inspector Richard Queen on the 1958-59 incarnation of the venerable Ellery Queen; and as Mentor on the Saturday morning Captain Marvel-inspired weekly Shazam! (1974-77). In 1995, Les Tremayne, as golden-throated as ever, was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame during a moving, nationally broadcast ceremony from Chicago's Museum of Broadcasting.

Henry Brandon (Actor) .. Cop

Born: June 18, 1912
Died: July 15, 1990

Trivia: Born Henry Kleinbach, the name under which he appeared until 1936, Brandon was a tall man with black curly hair; he occasionally played the handsome lead but was more often typecast to play villains. As the latter, he appeared as white, Indian, German, and Asian men. Brandon's film career began with Babes in Toyland (1934) and went on to span fifty years. He played villains whom the audiences loved to hate in serials in the '30s and '40s, such as the Cobra in Jungle Jim, the mastermind criminal Blackstone in Secret Agent X-9, Captain Lasca in Buck Rogers Conquers the Universe (1939), and a sinister Oriental in Drums of Fu Manchu. Brandon played Indian chiefs no fewer than 26 times, notably in two John Ford westerns. He had occasional leading roles on New York stage, such as in a 1949 revival of Medea in which he played a virile Jason opposite Judith Anderson.

Carolyn Jones (Actor) .. Bird-Brained Blonde

Born: April 28, 1930
Died: August 03, 1983
Birthplace: Amarillo, Texas, United States

Trivia: Trained at the Pasadena Playhouse, Texas-born Carolyn Jones supported herself as a radio disk jockey when acting jobs were scarce. She entered films as a bit player in 1952, attaining prominence for a role in which (for the most part) she neither moved nor spoke: the waxwork Joan of Arc -- actually one of mad sculptor Vincent Price's many murder victims -- in 1953's House of Wax. In 1957, Jones was Oscar-nominated for her five-minute role as a pathetic "good time girl" in The Bachelor Party; two years later, she stole the show in Frank Capra's A Hole in the Head as Frank Sinatra's bongo-playing girlfriend. During the early 1960s, Jones was married to producer Aaron Spelling, who frequently cast her on such TV series as The Dick Powell Show and Burke's Law. In 1964, Jones achieved TV sitcom immortality as the ghoulishly sexy Morticia Addams on the popular series The Addams Family. Though her TV and movie activities were curtailed by illness in her last decade (she died of cancer in 1983), Carolyn Jones continued making occasional appearances, notably a return engagement as Morticia in a 1978 Addams Family reunion special.

Pierre Cressoy (Actor) .. Man

Born: March 25, 1924

John Mansfield (Actor) .. Man

Died: January 01, 1956

Trivia: Supporting actor who appeared in adventure films and big-budget westerns.

Eric Alden (Actor) .. Man

Nancy Hale (Actor) .. Young Wife

Virginia Hall (Actor) .. Girl

Patricia Iannone (Actor) .. Girl

Walter Sande (Actor) .. Sheriff Bogany

Born: July 09, 1906
Died: November 22, 1971
Birthplace: Denver, Colorado, United States

Trivia: Born in Colorado and raised in Oregon, actor Walter Sande was a music student from age six. He dropped out of college to organize his own band, then for many years served as musical director for the West Coast Fox Theater chain. In 1937, Sande entered films with a small role in Goldwyn Follies (1938). He fluctuated thereafter between bits in films like Citizen Kane (1941), in which he played one of the many reporters, and supporting roles in films like To Have and Have Not (1944), in which he portrayed the defaulting customer who is punched out by a boat-renting Humphrey Bogart. On television, Walter Sande played Horatio Bullwinkle on Tugboat Annie (1958) and Papa Holstrum on The Farmer's Daughter (1963-1966).

Charles Gemora (Actor) .. Martian

Born: June 15, 1903

Trivia: One of the most successful and busiest of Hollywood's "gorilla men," Charles Gemora appeared in almost three-dozen feature films between the 1920s and the 1950s, in addition to work as a makeup artist on more movies and television shows. Born in the Philippines in 1903, he stowed away as a young man on an American ship to get to the United States. He reached Southern California in the midst of the silent movie boom, and put his talent as an artist to work, picking up work doing portraits while hanging around the entrance to the Universal lot. He was soon hired by the art department and was part of the crew of artists and designers who worked on the studio's gargantuan production of The Phantom of the Opera (1925). He began creating gorilla suits for use in movies, and it soon dawned on him that with his natural ability as a mime, and his relatively short stature, he could just as easily use the suits on camera as construct them. Gemora would spend almost three decades honing his realistic performance and leading the evolution of suit effects. He made three on-screen appeareances as a gorilla in 1928, in The Leopard Lady, The Circus Kid, and Do Gentlemen Snore?, and from there on busy in this unique brand of acting craft over the next few years. He was seen in the Laurel & Hardy film The Chimp and the Bela Lugosi horror vehicle Murders in the Rue Morgue (both 1932), among other films, though he is probably most familiar for two appearances at opposite ends of the decade: as the gorilla in the 1930 Little Rascals/Our Gang short Bear Shooters (where, as a man in a gorilla suit, he is unmasked at one point); and, in a memorably comic and, indeed, slightly touching portrayal, as the gorilla in the Laurel & Hardy feature film Swiss Miss (1938). Gemora later moved from Universal to Paramount, where he worked for most of the last decade of his career. In later years, Gemora varied his portrayals, both in the personality he brought to his characters and the characters themselves. He most often, of course, played gorillas, but he also occasionally abandoned the suit -- and simian roles -- entirely. Most notably, in War of the Worlds (1953), he played the martian who confronts Gene Barry and Ann Robinson in the wreckage of the house, in what is probably the tensest and most memorable scene in the movie. And he got to work in 3D in Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1953), a remake of Murders in the Rue Morgue. The latter marked his last appearance in a gorilla suit, and in I Married a Monster From Outer Space (1958), he was once more playing an alien invader. Sad to say, in a career that had him working with Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, and the Marx Brothers, Gemora hardly ever received any on-screen credit. His gorillas, however, are generally regarded as among the most realistic in movies, a result of Gemora's practice of studying their mannerisms and characteristics as seen in zoos and translating them into performance. For all of his skills in the gorilla suit, Gemora was also a highly talented makeup artist, with extensive credits in that area, and not just dealing with simian themes. His last screen credit was for the fantasy film Jack the Giant Killer (1962), and he also worked on The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959), as well as the Cecil B. DeMille productions The Ten Commandments (1956) and Unconquered (1947). Additionally, he was credited as a makeup artist on "The Time Element," the 1958 Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse installment that was the basis for The Twilight Zone.

Alex Frazer (Actor) .. Dr. Hettinger

Born: January 01, 1899
Died: January 01, 1958

Ann Codee (Actor) .. Dr. Duprey

Born: January 01, 1890
Died: May 18, 1961

Trivia: Belgian actress Ann Codee toured American vaudeville in the 'teens and twenties in a comedy act with her husband, American-born Frank Orth. The team made its film debut in 1929, appearing in a series of multilingual movie shorts. Thereafter, both Codee and Orth flourished as Hollywood character actors. Codee was seen in dozens of films as florists, music teachers, landladies, governesses and grandmothers. She played a variety of ethnic types, from the very French Mme. Poullard in Jezebel (1938) to the Teutonic Tante Berthe in The Mummy's Curse (1961). Ann Codee's last film appearance was as a tight-corseted committeewoman in Can-Can (1960).

Ivan Lebedeff (Actor) .. Dr. Gratzman

Born: June 18, 1895
Died: March 31, 1953

Trivia: Lithuanian-born actor Ivan Lebedeff was a graduate of the University of St. Petersburg and that same city's Military Academy. At one time, Lebedeff served as an officer of the Czar and later as a diplomat. After the Bolshevik revolution, he fled to Germany, where he began his film-acting career in 1922. He worked in the French movie industry for a while before settling in Hollywood in 1925. His screen assignments included a leading role in D.W. Griffiths Sorrows of Satan (1926), a villainous turn in Wheeler & Woolsey's The Cuckoos (1930), and top billing in RKO's The Gay Diplomat (1931). Thereafter he settled into supporting roles as hand-kissing noblemen, phony Russian counts, society cads, professional correspondents and gigolos. Even at the height of his activity, the thinly mustached, expressively eyebrowed Lebedeff had no qualms about accepting an occasional unbilled role, notably W. C. Fields' tuxedoed ping-pong opponent in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939). When the demand for continental-cad characterizations diminished, Ivan Lebedeff eased into dignified character roles; one of his last appearances was as Dr. Gratzman in the sci-fi classic War of the Worlds (1953).

Robert Rockwell (Actor) .. Ranger

Born: October 15, 1921
Died: January 25, 2003

Trivia: After spending three seasons with the Pasadena Playhouse, actor Robert Rockwell made his Broadway debut in Jose Ferrer's 1946 production of Cyrano de Bergerac, a job he landed on the strength of his dueling skills. Signed to a Republic Pictures contract in 1949, he starred in 11 films over a period of two years, including the infamous anti-Communist tract The Red Menace. From 1952 to 1955, he was seen as Mr. Philip Boynton, the stunningly handsome and incredibly naïve biology teacher on TV's Our Miss Brooks. So typecast was he by this role that he had some trouble finding work after the series' cessation, but the TV-Western boom came to his rescue in 1959, when he was cast as two-fisted frontier insurance investigator Sam Logan in The Man From Blackhawk. Active into the 1990s, Robert Rockwell could be seen in character roles in such TVers as Growing Pains and Beverly Hills 90210.

Alvy Moore (Actor) .. Zippy

Born: January 01, 1921
Died: May 04, 1997

Trivia: In films from 1952, thin-necked, crew-cutted Alvy Moore was typecast as snoops, unwanted suitors and general, all-around pests. Moore did get to break away from his usual assignments in such roles as a motorcycle bum in The Wild One (1953) and Debbie Reynolds' boyfriend in Susan Slept Here (1954). A prolific TV guest star, Moore was hilarious as the faux IRS agent Handlebuck in the Emmy-winning Dick Van Dyke Show episode "The Impractical Joke." Fans of the sitcom Green Acres (1965-71) will remember Moore best as self-contradictory agricultural agent Hank Kimball a role he reprised in a 1990 reunion film. In the 1970s, Alvy Moore turned producer, teaming with another busy character actor, L.Q. Jones, to turn out the low-budget chiller Brotherhood of Satan (1971) and the cult classic A Boy and His Dog (1975).

Frank Kreig (Actor) .. Fiddler Hawkins

John Maxwell (Actor) .. Doctor

Ned Glass (Actor) .. Well-dressed Man During Looting

Born: January 01, 1906
Died: June 15, 1984

Trivia: Sardonic, short-statured actor Ned Glass was born in Poland and spent his adolescence in New York. He came from vaudeville and Broadway to films in 1938, playing bits and minor roles in features and short subjects until he was barred from working in the early 1950s, yet another victim of the insidious Hollywood blacklist. Glass was able to pay the bills thanks to the support of several powerful friends. Producer John Houseman cast Glass in uncredited but prominent roles in the MGM "A" pictures Julius Caesar (1953) and The Bad and the Beautiful (1954); Glass' next-door neighbor, Moe Howard of the Three Stooges, arranged for Glass to play small parts in such Stooge comedies as Hokus Pokus (1949) and Three Hams on Rye (1954); and TV superstar Jackie Gleason frequently employed Glass for his "Honeymooners" sketches. His reputation restored by the early 1960s, Glass appeared as Doc in West Side Story (1961) and as one of the main villains in Charade (1963), among many other screen assignments; he also worked regularly on episodic TV. In 1972, Ned Glass was nominated for an Emmy award for his portrayal of Uncle Moe on the popular sitcom Bridget Loves Bernie.

Cliff Clark (Actor) .. Australian Policeman

Born: January 01, 1893
Died: February 08, 1953

Trivia: After a substantial stage career, American actor Cliff Clark entered films in 1937. His movie credits ranged from Mountain Music to the 1953 Burt Lancaster/Virginia Mayo affair South Sea Woman. The weather-beaten Clark usually played surly city detectives, most frequently in RKO's Falcon series of the 1940s. In 1944, Clark briefly ascended from "B"s to "A"s in the role of his namesake, famed politico Champ Clark, in the 20th Century-Fox biopic Wilson. And in the 1956 TV series Combat Sergeant, Cliff Clark was second-billed as General Harrison.

Edward Colmans (Actor) .. Spanish Priest

Born: January 01, 1908
Died: January 01, 1977

Jamesson Shade (Actor) .. Deacon

Born: January 01, 1894
Died: January 01, 1956

David McMahon (Actor) .. Minister

Born: January 01, 1908
Died: January 01, 1972

Gertrude W. Hoffman (Actor) .. News Vendor

Born: January 01, 1870
Died: January 01, 1966

Freeman Lusk (Actor) .. Secretary of Defense

Born: January 01, 1905
Died: January 01, 1970

Don Kohler (Actor) .. Colonel

Sydney Mason (Actor) .. Fire Chief

Born: January 01, 1904
Died: January 01, 1976

Peter Adams (Actor) .. Lookout

Born: January 01, 1917
Died: January 01, 1987

Trivia: American actor Peter Adams comes from one of California's first families. He began acting while attending Williams College and appeared in both feature films and television for over 50 years.

Ted Hecht (Actor) .. KGEB Reporter

Born: February 17, 1908
Died: June 24, 1969

Trivia: New York-born actor Ted Hecht (also sometimes billed as Theodore Hecht) got his start in theater, and eventually moved up to the Broadway stage, where he worked in such plays as Congai (1928), The Great Man (1931), and Maxwell Anderson's Winterset (1935). Hecht made the move into motion pictures at the start of the 1940s in small uncredited roles -- with his dark, intense features and rough voice, he was quickly typed into playing "foreign" roles, often with a sinister edge, in movies at every stratum of Hollywood. In So Proudly We Hail! (1943), he played Dr. Jose Bardia, while in the Katharine Hepburn/Walter Huston vehicle Dragon Seed (1944), he portrayed Major Yohagi; he was Prince Ozira in Tarzan and the Huntress (1947), and Lieutenant Sarac in Istanbul (1957). Hecht was also heavily employed on television, again in exotic and sometimes nefarious parts. In three episodes of The Adventures of Superman he portrayed (East) Indians and Arabs, while he played Chinese characters in episodes of Terry and the Pirates. Hecht normally did one-shot appearances that didn't allow him much in the opportunities to develop his characters or his portrayals. The big exception in his career came during his work on the series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, where he appeared in seven episodes, portraying the notorious interplanetary outlaw and pirate Pinto Vortando. His work was, by turns, broad, sinister, and charming, a mix of stereotyped Mexican bandito with a little bit of Long John Silver thrown in, but it did evolve across the series. He starts out as a one-dimensional bad guy but convincingly softens from his contact with the youngest of the heroes, the boy space traveler Bobby (Robert Lyden), and, by his seventh episode, becomes one of the series' most likable villains, a rogue with a twinkle of goodness in his eye that he can't stamp out but must live with. Even 40 years later, watching the series, one couldn't help but be impressed with what he did with the one- (okay, maybe one-and-a-half-) dimensional role. Hecht retired at the end of the 1950s, and passed away in 1969.

Teru Shimada (Actor) .. Japanese Diplomat

Born: November 17, 1905
Died: June 19, 1988
Birthplace: Mito, Japan

Herbert Lytton (Actor) .. Chief of Staff

Died: January 01, 1981

Ralph Dumke (Actor) .. Buck Monahan

Born: January 01, 1899
Died: January 01, 1964

Edgar Barrier (Actor) .. Prof. McPherson

Born: March 04, 1907
Died: June 20, 1964

Trivia: In his few major film appearances, American actor Edgar Barrier exuded a professorial air, which he frequently augmented by sporting a well-groomed beard. Barrier's best acting opportunities came via his association with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, both in its Broadway incarnation and its radio spinoff. Welles used Barrier to good advantage in his film productions of Journey Into Fear and MacBeth; in the latter picture, Barrier plays the unfortunate Banquo, whose materialization as a ghost is one of the film's highlights. Outside of the Welles orbit, Barrier worked steadily on radio, notably in the spooky confections of Lights Out maven Arch Oboler. In 1945, Barrier starred in the radio detective weekly The Saint. Many of Edgar Barrier's film roles were brief, and often uncredited (War of the Worlds [1953], On the Double [1961] etc.); his most memorable film appearance was as the mad sportsman Count Zaroff, enthusiastic hunter of human beings, in A Game of Death (1945).

Wally Richard (Actor) .. Reporter

Morton C. Thompson (Actor) .. Reporter

Jerry James (Actor) .. Reporter

Ralph Montgomery (Actor) .. Red Cross Leader

Died: January 01, 1980

Trivia: American actor, singer, and dancer Ralph Montgomery played character roles in vaudeville, radio, and television. Montgomery also appeared in numerous feature films from the '40s through the mid-'70s. In addition to performing, he also worked as a drama coach. His daughter is an actress and his son, Phil Montgomery, is an actor and producer.

Russ Bender (Actor) .. Dr. Carmichael

Born: January 01, 1910
Died: August 16, 1969

Trivia: Over his 14-year film career, actor Russ Bender appeared almost exclusively in low-budget horror films: The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), It Conquered the World (1957), Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1965), etc. One of his few "mainstream" assignments was the role of Edgar Llewellyn in 20th Century-Fox's Compulsion (1959). Russ Bender is also listed as screenwriter on such pinchpenny projects as Voodoo Woman.

Douglas Henderson (Actor) .. Staff Sergeant

Born: January 01, 1918
Died: April 05, 1978

Trivia: American character actor Douglas Henderson shifted his activities from stage to screen in 1952, when he appeared in Stanley Kramer's Eight Iron Men. Like many general purpose actors of the era, he was frequently cast in science fiction and horror films along the lines of King Dinosaur and Invasion of the Saucer Men. He was generally cast in authoritative or military roles: officers, congressmen, FBI agents, and the like. Douglas Henderson's final film assignment was the 1970 thriller Zigzag; eight years later, he committed suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning.

Anthony Warde (Actor) .. MP Driver

Born: January 01, 1909
Died: January 08, 1975

Trivia: Dark, pencil-mustached American actor Anthony Warde made his film bow in 1936. Throughout his career, Warde excelled in unsavory characterizations, usually in serials and low-budget crime and Western films. He played Killer Kane in the 1939 chapter play Buck Rogers, and also showed up in such Republic serials as The Masked Marvel (1943), The Purple Monster Strikes (1945), and The Black Widow (1947). Active until 1964, Anthony Warde made a number of TV appearances in the 1950s, including a brief turn as a counterfeiter in an episode of Amos 'N' Andy.

Bud Wolfe (Actor) .. Big Man

Born: January 12, 1918

Jimmie Dundee (Actor) .. Civil Defense Official

Born: December 19, 1900

Joel Marston (Actor) .. MP

Born: January 01, 1922

Bill Meader (Actor) .. P.E. Official

Al Ferguson (Actor) .. Police Chief

Born: April 19, 1888
Died: December 14, 1971

Trivia: Enjoying one of the longest screen careers on record, Irish-born, English-reared Al Ferguson became one of the silent era's busiest Western villains, his wolf-like features instantly recognizable to action fans everywhere. According to the actor himself, Ferguson had entered films with the American company as early as 1910, and by 1912, he was appearing in Selig Westerns under the name of "Smoke" Ferguson, often opposite action heroine Myrtle Steadman. In 1920, Ferguson played Hector Dion's henchman in the partially extant The Lost City, the first of more than 40 serials, silent and sound, in which he would appear. Still reasonably good-looking by the early '20s, Ferguson even attempted to become an action star in his own right, producing, directing, and starring in a handful of low-budget Westerns filmed in Oregon and released to the States' Rights market by Poverty Row mogul J. Charles Davis. None of these potboilers, which included The Fighting Romeo (1925), with Ferguson as a ranch foreman rescuing his employer's kidnapped daughter, made him a star, however, and he returned to ply his nefarious trade in low-budget oaters featuring the likes of Bob Steele and Tom Tyler. Today, Ferguson is perhaps best remembered as the main heavy in two Tarzan serials, Tarzan the Mighty (1928) and Tarzan the Tiger (1929), both starring Frank Merrill. The later survives intact and Ferguson emerges as a melodramatic screen villain at the top of his game.Like most of his contemporaries, including Bud Osborne and the silent era James Mason, Al Ferguson saw his roles decrease in stature after the advent of sound. Not because of his Irish accent, which had become all but undetectable, but mainly due to changing acting styles. Ferguson, however, hung in there and appeared in scores of sound Westerns and serials, not exclusively portraying villains but also playing lawmen, peaceful ranchers, townsmen, and even a Native American or two. By the 1950s, he had included television shows such as Sky King to his long resumé, but B-Westerns and serials remained Ferguson's bread and butter, the now veteran actor appearing in the cast of both Perils of the Wilderness (1956) and Blazing the Overland Trail (1956), the final chapter plays to be released in America.

Rudy Lee (Actor) .. Boy

Waldon Williams (Actor) .. Boy

Gus Taillon (Actor) .. Elderly Man

Ruth Barnell (Actor) .. Mother

Dorothy Vernon (Actor) .. Elderly Woman

Born: January 01, 1875
Died: January 01, 1970

George Pal (Actor) .. Bum

Born: February 01, 1908
Died: May 02, 1980
Birthplace: Cegled, Austria-Hungary

Trivia: Trained as an architect at the Budapest Academy of the Arts, Hungarian filmmaker George Pal had trouble securing work in his chosen profession in the late 1920s; to keep food on the table, he designed "art" subtitles for silent films. At the Berlin studios of UFA in 1931, Pal began designing sets, then cultivated an interest in stop-motion animation. Moving to Holland in 1933, Pal produced a group of animated puppet shorts for Phillips Radio of Holland. Reportedly, Pal's European career was cut short when he had the temerity to produce an anti-fascist allegorical short. Pal arrived in the U.S. in 1939 to lecture at Columbia University, where he was approached by representatives of Paramount Pictures, who were interested in releasing a series of Pal-produced animated one-reelers. Beginning in 1940, Pal was responsible for the Puppettoons series (also known as Madcap Marionettes), a lucrative property that won the producer a special Oscar in 1943. Seen today, the Puppetoons remain dazzling technical achievements, even though their storylines range from skimpy to bewildering. The best of the Puppetoons include John Henry and the Inky-Poo, Tubby the Tuba, and the "Jasper and the Scarecrow" series. After filming a special animated sequence for the 1947 feature film Variety Girl, Pal and Paramount parted company. He became an independent producer with the 1950 Jimmy Durante comedy The Great Rupert, in which Durante costarred with an animated squirrel. Pal's next project, the slow-moving but visually exciting science-fiction endeavor Destination Moon (1950), won an Academy Award for best special effects. Back at Paramount in 1951, Pal inherited two unproduced sci-fi properties from Cecil B. DeMille. The resultant films, When Worlds Collide (1951) and War of the Worlds (1951), added two more special-effects Oscars to Pal's mantle. Curiously, his first non-fantasy Paramount production, Houdini (1953), was utterly unconvincing in recreating Houdini's legendary illusions (that "jump cut" as Houdini saws his wife in half is particualarly offensive). Pal's remaining Paramount productions were equally disappointing, but he made up for his past missteps with his first directorial assignment (which he also produced), MGM's Tom Thumb. This imaginative musical comedy not only won Pal his fourth Oscar, but also happily revived his "Puppetoon" concept, now smoother and more convincing than ever. Oscar number five was bestowed upon the special effects for Pal's The Time Machine (1960), which falters in the dramatic scenes (he never was comfortable directing people) but excells in its vision of the future. The cheapjack Atlantis the Lost Continent (1961) was next, followed by the Cinerama "special" The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962), which had as its main attractions a screenful of Pupppetoon elves and a fire-breathing dragon. Many of Pal's fans consider 1964's Seven Faces of Dr. Lao his finest work. Unfortunately Lao was a bit too rareified to succeed at the box office, and it would be a decade before Pal would direct his next -- and last -- film. Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975), a serviceable adventure romp, was weakened by post-production efforts to "camp" the material (e.g. adding an animated gleam to the hero's eye). The failure of Doc Savage prevented Pal from raising the necessary funds for his proposed series of science-fiction films in the late 1970s. As one fan has noted, Pal may have been too nice a guy to survive in the sharktank Hollywood of the era. Nonetheless, the George Pal legend has endured long after his death in 1980. Devotees are referred to two recent retrospective films, the semi-documentary Fantasy World of George Pal (1986) and the compilation feature The Puppetoon Movie (1987).

Frank Freeman Jr. (Actor) .. Bum

Trivia: A longtime animal trainer responsible for coaching such legendary screen animals as Benji and Lassie, Frank Freeman (credited as Frank Inn) got his start training animals when, after being hit by a car (and declared legally dead), he was given a small dog to keep him company during his convalescence. Born the son of a Quaker preacher in Camby, IN, Freeman got his break in show business as a janitor at MGM. Showing off his first trainee to animal trainer Henry East (the man responsible for the coaching of Asta in the Thin Man films), Freeman was hired immediately and soon began work on such films as the Lassie series and National Velvet (1944). Moving on to coach hundreds of animals during his six-decade career, Freeman's animals took major roles in such films as Breakfast at Tiffany's and The Daring Dobermans (1973) and such television series as I Love Lucy, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Green Acres. One of his most recognizable trainees from a Burbank animal shelter that he rescued, a likeable young pup who had previously appeared on Petticoat Junction, went on to a successful career as Benji in a series of films by director Joe Camp. Freeman's work would later find him the first inductee into the International Association of Canine Professionals Hall of Fame. In late July 2002, Frank Freeman died of natural causes in Sylmar, CA. He was 86.

Hugh Allen (Actor) .. Brigadier General

Stanley Orr (Actor) .. Marine Major

Charles J. Stewart (Actor) .. Marine Captain

Fred Zendar (Actor) .. Marine Lieutenant

Jim Davies (Actor) .. Marine Commanding Officer

Dick Fortune (Actor) .. Marine Captain

Edward Wahrman (Actor) .. Cameraman

Martin Coulter (Actor) .. Marine Sergeant

Hazel Boyne (Actor) .. Screaming Woman

Cora Shannon (Actor) .. Old Woman

Born: January 01, 1868
Died: January 01, 1957

Mike Mahoney (Actor) .. Young Man

Born: March 16, 1918
Died: January 01, 1988

David Sharpe (Actor) .. Looter

Born: January 01, 1909
Died: March 30, 1980

Trivia: "Ask any stunt man who his favorite stunt man is," wrote film historian Alan Barbour in 1970, "and chances are nine out of ten of them will answer David Sharpe. " In vaudeville from childhood, Sharpe was a superb athlete, the winner of the A.A.U. tumbling championship and several other competitions. Beginning his film career in his teens, Sharpe could literally double for anybody, be they husky he-men like Allan Lane and Kane Richmond or petite actresses like Kay Aldridge and Frances Gifford. His work in such Republic serials as The Adventures of Captain Marvel (love that back-flip!) and Spy Smasher has entered the realm of legend. A personable actor, Sharpe was one of the leads in Hal Roach's "Boy Friends" 2-reelers of the early 1930s. Remaining active into the 1970s, Sharpe doubled for Tony Curtis in Blake Edwards' The Great Race and made innumerable appearances on Red Skelton's TV show, usually cast as a somersaulting little old lady. Sadly, David Sharpe spent his last years in complete immobility, suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Dale Van Sickel (Actor) .. Looter

Born: November 29, 1907
Died: January 25, 1977

Trivia: A University of Florida football star, Dale Van Sickel entered films in the very early '30s as an extra. Playing hundreds of bit parts at almost every studio in Hollywood, Van Sickel earned his true fame as one of Republic Pictures' famous stuntmen, specializing in fisticuffs and car stunts. He appeared in nearly all the studio's serials in the 1940s, including The Tiger Woman (1944), The Purple Monster Strikes (1945), and The Black Widow (1947), almost always playing several bit roles as well. Often the studio cast their leading men because of their resemblance to Van Sickel and the other members of the serial stunt fraternity that included Tom Steele, Dave Sharpe, and Ted Mapes. A founding member and the first president of the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures, Van Sickel later performed in innumerable television shows as well as such diverse feature films as Spartacus (1960), It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), and The Love Bug (1969).

Fred Graham (Actor) .. Looter

Born: January 01, 1918
Died: October 10, 1979

Trivia: In films from the early 1930s, Fred Graham was one of Hollywood's busiest stunt men and stunt coordinators. A fixture of the Republic serial unit in the 1940s and 1950s, Graham was occasionally afforded a speaking part, usually as a bearded villain. His baseball expertise landed him roles in films like Death on the Diamond (1934), Angels in the Outfield (1951) and The Pride of St. Louis (1952). He was also prominently featured in several John Wayne vehicles, including She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Fighting Kentuckian (1949), The Horse Soldiers (1959) and The Alamo (1960). After retiring from films, Fred Graham served as director of the Arizona Motion Pictures Development Office.

Paul H. Frees (Actor) .. Radio Announcer

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.

William Phipps (Actor) .. Wash Perry

Born: February 04, 1922

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from 1947.

Russ Conway (Actor) .. Rev. Bethany

Born: April 25, 1913

Trivia: American actor Russ Conway was most at home in the raincoat of a detective or the uniform of a military officer. Making his movie bow in 1948, Conway worked in TV and films throughout the '50s and '60s. Some of his films include Larceny (1948), My Six Convicts (1952), Love Me Tender (1956) (as Ed Galt, in support of Elvis Presley) Fort Dobbs (1958) and Our Man Flint (1966). TV series featuring Conway in guest spots included The Beverly Hillbillies, The Munsters and Petticoat Junction. Russ Conway settled down in 1959 to play Lieutenant Pete Kyle on David Janssen's private eye TV weekly Richard Diamond.

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