Ralph Bellamy
Ralph Rexford Bellamy was an American actor whose career spanned 62 years on stage and television. During his career, he played leading roles as well as supporting roles, garnering acclaim and awards, including an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for The Awful Truth. Ralph Rexford Bellamy was born in Chicago, he was the son of Lilla Louise, a native of Canada, Charles Rexford Bellamy. He managed to get into a road show, he toured with road shows before landing in New York City. He by 1927 owned his own theater company. In 1931, he made his film debut and worked throughout the decade both as a lead and as a capable supporting actor, he co-starred in five films with Fay Wray. His film career began with The Secret Six starring Wallace Beery and featuring Jean Harlow and Clark Gable. By the end of 1933, he had appeared in 22 movies, most notably Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and the second lead in the action film Picture Snatcher with James Cagney, he played in seven more films in 1934 alone, including Woman in the Dark, based on a Dashiell Hammett story, in which Bellamy played the lead, second-billed under Fay Wray.
Bellamy kept up the pace through the decade, receiving a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Awful Truth with Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, played a similar part, that of a naive boyfriend competing with the sophisticated Grant character, in His Girl Friday. He portrayed detective Ellery Queen in a few films during the 1940s, but as his film career did not progress, he returned to the stage, where he continued to perform throughout the 1950s. Bellamy appeared in other movies during this time, including Dance, Dance with Maureen O'Hara and Lucille Ball, the horror classic The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney, Jr. and Evelyn Ankers. He appeared in The Ghost of Frankenstein in 1942 with Chaney and Bela Lugosi. In 1949, Bellamy starred in the television noir private eye series Man Against Crime on the DuMont Television Network; the lead role was taken by Frank Lovejoy in 1956, who subsequently starred in NBC's Meet McGraw detective series. Bellamy appeared on television in numerous roles over the following years.
He was a regular panelist on the CBS television game show To Tell the Truth during its initial run. Bellamy starred as Willard Mitchell, along with Patricia Breslin and Paul Fix, in the 1961 episode "The Haven" of CBS's anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson. About this same time, he appeared on the NBC anthology series, The Barbara Stanwyck Show. In December 1961, he portrayed the part of Judge Quince in the episode "Judgement at Hondo Seco" on CBS's Rawhide. During the 1963–1964 television season, Bellamy co-starred with Jack Ging in the NBC medical drama The Eleventh Hour, in the role of a psychiatrist in private practice. Wendell Corey had appeared in the first season of the series. Bellamy appeared on Broadway in one of his most famous roles, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello, he reprised the role in the 1960 film version. In the summer of 1961, Bellamy hosted nine original episodes of a CBS Western anthology series called Frontier Justice, a Dick Powell Four Star Television production.
In 1950 Bellamy became a member of an actors club located in New York. In 1962, Bellamy was cast as a minister, Daniel Quint, in the 1962 episode, "The Vintage Years," on the syndicated anthology series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, a young woman whom Quint befriends on a stagecoach ride, Lorna Erickson, sets him up to be robbed by her paramour, Johnny Meadows. Regarded within the industry, Bellamy served as a four-term President of Actors' Equity from 1952–1964. On film, Bellamy starred in the Western The Professionals as an oil tycoon married to Claudia Cardinale opposite adventurers Burt Lancaster and Lee Marvin, Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby as an evil physician, before turning to television during the 1970s. Among many roles in numerous shows, sometimes as a series regular, Bellamy portrayed Adlai Stevenson in the 1974 TV-movie The Missiles of October, a treatment of the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was a member of the cast of the short-lived CBS espionage drama Hunter in 1977.
An Emmy Award nomination for the mini-series The Winds of War – in which Bellamy reprised his Sunrise at Campobello role of Franklin D. Roosevelt – brought him back into the spotlight; this was followed by his role as Randolph Duke, a conniving millionaire commodities trader in Trading Places alongside Don Ameche. The 1988 Eddie Murphy film, Coming to America, included a brief cameo by Bellamy and Don Ameche, reprising their roles as the Duke brothers. In 1984, Bellamy was presented with a Life Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild, in 1987, he received an Honorary Academy Award "for his unique artistry and his distinguished service to the profession of acting". In 1988, he again portrayed Franklin Roosevelt in the sequel to The Winds of War and Remembrance. Among his roles was a memorable appearance as a once-brilliant but senile lawyer sadly skewered by the Jimmy Smits character on an episode of L. A. Law. Bellamy continued working and gave his final performance in Pretty Woman. Throughout the 1930s and'40s, Bellamy was seen with a s
James Best
Jewel Franklin Guy, known professionally as James Best, was an American television, film and voice actor, as well as a writer, acting coach, college professor, musician. During a career that spanned more than 60 years, he performed not only in feature films but in scores of television series, as well as appearing on various country music programs and talk shows. Television audiences, however most associate Best with his role as the bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the action-comedy series The Dukes of Hazzard, which aired on CBS between 1979 and 1985, he reprised the role in 1997 and 2000 for the made-for-television movies The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! and The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood. Best was born on July 1926, in Powderly, Kentucky, to Lark and Lena Guy, his mother was the sister of the father of the pop duo The Everly Brothers. After his mother died of tuberculosis in 1929 three-year-old James was sent to live in an orphanage, he was adopted by Armen Best and his wife, Essa Myrtle and went to live with them in Corydon, Indiana.
He served honorably in the United States Army in World War II, training in 1944 in Biloxi, Mississippi, as a gunner on a B-17 bomber. In the military police, as an "MP", Best served in war-torn Germany after the Nazi government's surrender in May 1945. While stationed in Germany, Best soon transferred from the military police to an army unit of actors, who traveled around Europe performing plays for troops; those experiences formed the beginning of his acting career. Destined to become one of the busiest performers in Hollywood, Best began his contract career in 1949 at Universal Studios, where he met fellow actors Julie Adams, Piper Laurie, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, he performed in several uncredited roles for Universal, such as in the 1950 film One Way Street. Work in that genre continued to be an important part of his ongoing film career, including roles in The Cimarron Kid, Seven Angry Men in which he portrays one of the sons of abolitionist John Brown, Last of the Badmen, Cole Younger Gunfighter, Ride Lonesome, The Quick Gun, Firecreek.
Yet, Best's film roles are not limited to Westerns. He, for example stars in the 1959 science fiction cult movie The Killer Shrews and in its 2012 sequel Return of the Killer Shrews. In the 1958 film adaptation of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead, he plays Private Ridges, as well as the characters Dr. Ben Mizer in the 1966 comedy Three on a Couch and the cross-dressing Dewey Barksdale in the 1976 drama Ode to Billy Joe. Best guest-starred more than 280 times in various television series. In 1954, he played the outlaw Dave Ridley, opposite Gloria Winters as the female bandit "Little Britches" in an episode of Stories of the Century. In 1954, Best appeared twice on the syndicated Annie Oakley series, starring Gail Davis and Brad Johnson, he was cast in the religion anthology series Crossroads, in its 1956 episode "The White Carnation." He was cast on an episode of Jackie Cooper's early NBC sitcom The People's Choice and in the David Janssen crime drama Richard Diamond, Private Detective. Best made four appearances on Death Valley Days.
His first role was as miner "Tiny" Stoker in the 1955 episode, "Million Dollar Wedding". In the story line, Stoker, in a bet with two of his cohorts, proposes marriage to a plain woman in their community, Aggie Filene. Soon, the couple falls madly in love with each other and go on a world-wide honeymoon tour with proceeds from a gold strike that they had nearly forfeited, and Aggie returns to the mining camp as a beautiful woman. In 1960, Best appeared in the episode "Love on Credit" of CBS's anthology series, The DuPont Show with June Allyson; the same year, he guest-starred on The Andy Griffith Show as "The Guitar Player". He starred in three episodes of The Twilight Zone including "The Grave", "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank," and "Jess-Belle". In 1963, he was cast as the courageous Wisconsin game warden, Ernie Swift, in the episode "Open Season" of another CBS anthology series, GE True, hosted by Jack Webb. In the storyline, Swift faces the reprisal of organized crime after he tickets gangster Frank MacErlane for illegal fishing.
In 1962, he played the part of Art Fuller in the episode "Incident of El Toro" on CBS's Rawhide. Best made two guest appearances on Perry Mason. In 1963 he played title character Martin Potter in "The Case of the Surplus Suitor," and in 1966 he played defendant and oilman Allan Winford in "The Case of the Unwelcome Well." He appeared on a long list of other television series in the 1950s and 1960s, including Wagon Train, The Adventures of Kit Carson, the western anthology series Frontier, The Rebel, Sheriff of Cochise, Pony Express, Rescue 8, Behind Closed Doors, The Texan, Have Gun – Will Travel, The Barbara Stanwyck Show, Tombstone Territory, Whispering Smith, The Rifleman, Stagecoach West, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Overland Trail, Bat Masterson, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Man and the Challenge, Combat!, The Gree
Robert Culp
Robert Martin Culp was an American actor, voice actor, director known for his work in television. Culp earned an international reputation for his role as Kelly Robinson on I Spy, the espionage television series in which co-star Bill Cosby and he played secret agents. Before this, he starred in the CBS/Four Star Western series Trackdown as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman from 1957 to 1959; the 1980s brought him back to television. He starred as FBI Agent Bill Maxwell on The Greatest American Hero and had a recurring role as Warren Whelan on Everybody Loves Raymond. Culp gave hundreds of performances in a career spanning more than 50 years. Culp was born on August 1930, in either Oakland, California or Berkeley, California, he was the only child of Crozier Cordell Culp, an attorney, his wife, Bethel Martin Culp. He graduated from Berkeley High School, where he was a pole vaulter and took second place at the 1947 CIF California State Meet. Culp did not graduate, he attended Washington University in St. Louis, San Francisco State, the University of Washington School of Drama, but never completed an academic degree.
He received his acting training at HB Studio in New York City. Robert Culp first came to national attention early in his career as the star of the 1957–59 CBS Western television series Trackdown, in which he played Ranger Hoby Gilman, based in the town of Porter, Texas, of which he is the sheriff, it was one of a long string of appearances in TV Westerns Culp. In 1960 he appeared in two episodes of Zane Grey Theater, playing different roles in "Morning Incident" and "Calico Bait". Trackdown had a CBS spin-off of its own, Wanted: Dead or Alive, with Steve McQueen as bounty hunter Josh Randall. After Trackdown ended in 1959 after two seasons, Culp continued to work in television, including a guest-starring role as Stewart Douglas in the 1960 episode "So Dim the Light" of CBS's anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson. In the summer of 1960, he guest-starred on David McLean's NBC Western series Tate, he played Clay Horne in the series finale, "Cave-In", of the CBS Western Johnny Ringo, starring Don Durant.
In 1961, Culp played the part of Craig Kern, a morphine-addicted soldier, in the episode "Incident on Top of the World" in the CBS series Rawhide. About this time, Culp was cast on the NBC anthology series, The Barbara Stanwyck Show and in the NBC Civil War drama, The Americans. Culp was cast as Captain Shark in a first-season episode of NBC's The Man from U. N. C. L. E.. Some of his more memorable performances were in three episodes of the science-fiction anthology series on The Outer Limits, including the classic "Demon with a Glass Hand", written by Harlan Ellison. In the 1961 season, he guest-starred on the NBC's Western Bonanza. In the 1961–62 season, he guest-starred on ABC's crime drama Target: The Corruptors!. In the 1962–1963 season, he guest-starred in NBC's modern Western series Empire starring Richard Egan. In 1964, Culp played Charlie Orwell, an alcoholic veterinarian, in an episode of The Virginian titled "The Stallion"; that same year, he appeared in Gunsmoke. In the series' episode "Hung High", he portrays an outlaw named Joe Costa, who attempts to frame Matt Dillon for lynching a prisoner who had killed the marshal's friend.
In 1965, he was cast as Frank Melo in "The Tender Twigs" of James Franciscus's NBC education drama series, Mr. Novak. Culp played his most memorable character, CIA secret agent Kelly Robinson, who operated undercover as a touring tennis professional, for three years on the hit NBC series I Spy, with co-star Bill Cosby. Culp wrote the scripts for seven episodes, one of which he directed and an episode earned him an Emmy nomination for writing. For all three years of the series, he was nominated for an acting Emmy, but lost each time to Cosby. In 1968, Culp made an uncredited cameo appearance as an inebriated Turkish waiter on Get Smart, the spy-spoof comedy series, in an I Spy parody episode titled "Die Spy". In this, secret agent Maxwell Smart played by Don Adams in effect assumes Culp's Kelly Robinson character, as he pretends to be an international table-tennis champion; the episode faithfully recreates the I Spy theme music, montage graphics, back-and-forth banter between Robinson and Scott, with actor/comedian Stu Gilliam imitating Cosby.
In 1971, Peter Falk, Robert Wagner, Darren McGavin each stepped in to take turns with Anthony Franciosa's rotation of NBC's series The Name of the Game after Franciosa was fired, alternating a lead role of the lavish, 90-minute show about the magazine business with Gene Barry and Robert Stack. In 1971 he portrayed an unemployed actor, the husband of ambitious Angie Dickinson, in the TV movie "See the Man Run". Culp played the murderer in three Columbo episodes and appeared in the 1990 episode "Columbo Goes To College" as the father of one of two young murderers, he played the murderer in the pilot episode of Mrs. Columbo starring Kate Mulgrew in the title role. In 1973, Culp took the male lead in the sci-fi television series Space: 1999. During negotiations with creator and executive producer Gerry Anderson, Culp expressed himself to be not only an asset as an actor, but as a director and producer for the proposed series; the part instead went to Martin Landau. Culp co-starred in The Greatest American Hero as tough veteran FBI Special Agent Bill Maxwell, who teams up with a high-school teacher w
Andy Devine
Andrew Vabre Devine was an American character actor known for his distinctive raspy, crackly voice and roles in Western films. He is best remembered for his role as Cookie, the sidekick of Roy Rogers in 10 feature films, he appeared alongside John Wayne in films like Stagecoach, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and How the West Was Won. He is remembered as Jingles on the TV series The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok from 1951 to 1958, as Danny McGuire in A Star Is Born and as the voice of Friar Tuck in the Disney Animation film Robin Hood. Devine was born in Flagstaff, Arizona on October 7, 1905, he grew up in Kingman, where his family moved when he was one year old. His father was Thomas Devine Jr. born in 1869 in Michigan. Andy's grandfather Thomas Devine Sr. was born in 1842 in County Tipperary and immigrated to the United States in 1852. Andy's mother was Amy Ward, a granddaughter of Commander James H. Ward, the first officer of the United States Navy killed during the Civil War. Devine was a Republican.
He attended St. Mary and St. Benedict's College and Northern Arizona State Teacher's College and was a football player at Santa Clara University, he played semiprofessional football under the pseudonym Jeremiah Schwartz. His football experience led to his first sizable film role in The Spirit of Notre Dame in 1931. Devine had an ambition to act, so after college he went to Hollywood, where he worked as a lifeguard at Venice Beach, in easy distance of the studios. While filming Doctor Bull at Fox Studios in 1933, he met Dorothy House, they were married on October 28, 1933, in Las Vegas and remained united until his death, on February 18, 1977. They had two children: Timothy Andrew Devine, Jr. Dennis Patrick Gabriel Devine, it was first thought that his peculiar wheezy voice would prevent him from moving to the talkies, but instead it became his trademark. Devine claimed that his distinctive voice resulted from a childhood accident in which he fell while running with a curtain rod in his mouth at the Beale Hotel in Kingman, causing the rod to pierce the roof of his mouth.
When he was able to speak again, he had a labored, duo-tone voice. A biographer, indicated that this was one of several stories Devine fabricated about his voice, his son Tad related in an interview for Encore Westerns Channel that there indeed had been an accident, but he was uncertain if it resulted in his father's unusual voice. When asked if he had strange nodes on his vocal cords, Devine replied, "I've got the same nodes as Bing Crosby, but his are in tune." Devine appeared in more than 400 films and shared with Walter Brennan, another character actor, the rare ability to move with ease from B-movie Westerns to feature films. His notable roles included Roy Rogers's sidekick, in 10 films, he appeared in several films with John Wayne, including Stagecoach, Island in the Sky, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. He was a long-time contract player with Universal, which in 1939 paired him with Richard Arlen for a series of fast-paced B-pictures that mixed action and comedy; when Arlen left in 1941, the series continued for another two years, teaming Devine with various actors Leo Carrillo.
Most of Devine's characters were reluctant to get involved in the action, but he played the hero in Island in the Sky, as an expert pilot who leads other aviators on an arduous search for a missing airplane. Devine was known for his comic roles, but Jack Webb cast him as a police detective in Pete Kelly's Blues, for which Devine lowered his voice and was more serious than usual, his film appearances in his years included roles in Zebra in the Kitchen, The Over-the-Hill Gang, Myra Breckinridge. Devine worked extensively in radio and is well remembered for his role as Jingles, Guy Madison's sidekick in The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, which the two actors reprised on television. Devine appeared over 75 times on Jack Benny's radio show between 1936 and 1942 in Benny's semiregular series of Western sketches, "Buck Benny Rides Again". Benny referred to him as "the mayor of Van Nuys." In fact, Devine served as honorary mayor of that city, where he lived, preferring to be away from the bustle of Hollywood, from May 18, 1938, to 1957, when he moved to Newport Beach.
Devine worked in television. He hosted Andy's Gang, a children's TV show, on NBC from 1955 to 1960. During this time, he made multiple appearances on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. In addition, he was a guest star on many television shows in the 1950s and 1960s, including an episode of The Twilight Zone titled "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby", playing the part of Frisby, a teller of tall tales who impresses a group of gullible alien kidnappers, he played Hap Gorman, a character given to tall tales, in five episodes of the NBC TV series Flipper, during its 1964 season. He played the role of Jake Sloan in the 1961 episode "Big Jake" of the acclaimed anthology series The Barbara Stanwyck Show on NBC, he played Honest John Denton in the episode "A Horse of a Different Cutter" of the short-lived series The Rounders. He made a cameo appearance as Santa Claus in an episode of the 1960s live-action Batman TV series on ABC; the episode, entitled "The Duo Is Slumming", was broadcast on December 22, 1966, three days before Christmas.
In this role, he directly addressed the viewers, wishing them
Jackie Cooper
John Cooper Jr. was an American actor, television director and executive. He was a child actor. Cooper was the first child actor to receive an Oscar nomination. At age nine, he was the youngest performer to have been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, an honor that he received for the film Skippy. For nearly 50 years, Cooper remained the youngest Oscar nominee in any category, until he was surpassed by Justin Henry, nominated at age eight for Best Supporting Actor for Kramer vs. Kramer. John Cooper Jr. was born in California. Cooper's father, John Cooper, left the family when Jackie was two years old and the two never reunited, his mother, Mabel Leonard Bigelow, was a stage pianist. Cooper's maternal uncle, Jack Leonard, was a screenwriter, his maternal aunt, Julie Leonard, was an actress married to director Norman Taurog. Cooper’s stepfather was C. J. Bigelow, a studio production manager, his mother was Italian American whose surname was changed from "Polito" to "Leonard."
Cooper was told by his family. Cooper first appeared in films as an extra with his grandmother, who took him to her auditions hoping it would help her get extra work. At age three, Jackie appeared in Lloyd Hamilton comedies under the name of "Leonard". Cooper graduated to bit parts in feature films such as Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 and Sunny Side Up, his director in those films, David Butler, recommended Cooper to director Leo McCarey, who arranged an audition for the Our Gang comedy series produced by Hal Roach. In 1929, Cooper signed a three-year contract after joining the series in the short Boxing Gloves, he was to be a supporting character in the series, but by early 1930 his success in transitioning to sound films enabled him to become one of Our Gang's major characters. He was the main character in the episodes The First Seven Years, his most notable Our Gang shorts explore his crush on Miss Crabtree, the schoolteacher played by June Marlowe. His Our Gang shorts included Teacher's Pet, School's Out, Love Business.
Cooper, under contract to Hal Roach Studios, was loaned in the spring of 1931 to Paramount to star in Skippy, directed by his uncle, Norman Taurog. For his work in Skippy Cooper was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, the youngest actor, at age nine, to be nominated for an Oscar as Best Actor. Although Paramount paid Roach $25,000 for Cooper's services, Roach paid Cooper only his standard salary of $50 per week; the movie catapulted young Cooper to superstardom. Our Gang producer Hal Roach sold Jackie's contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1931. Cooper began a long onscreen relationship with actor Wallace Beery in such films as The Champ, The Bowery, The Choices of Andy Purcell, Treasure Island, O'Shaughnessy's Boy. A legion of film critics and fans have lauded the relationship between the two as an example of classic movie magic. However, in his autobiography Cooper wrote that Beery was "a big disappointment" and accused Beery of upstaging him and attempting to undermine his performances out of what Cooper presumed was jealousy.
Cooper played the title role in the first two Henry Aldrich movies, What a Life with Henry. Once he reached adolescence, Cooper had problems finding roles, he served in the US Navy during World War II, receiving the Legion of Merit. He starred in two popular television sitcoms, NBC's The People's Choice with Patricia Breslin and CBS's Hennesey with Abby Dalton. In 1954, he guest-starred on the NBC legal drama Justice, he appeared on ABC's The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom, guest-starred with Tennessee Ernie Ford on NBC's The Ford Show playing the role of America's "Uranium King", as Charles A. Steen in "I Found 60 Million Dollars" on the Armstrong Circle Theatre. In 1950, he was cast in a production of Mr. Roberts in Boston, Massachusetts in the role of Ensign Pulver. From 1964 to 1969, Cooper was vice president of program development at the Columbia Pictures Screen Gems TV division, he was responsible for packaging series, such as Bewitched, selling them to the networks. Cooper acted only twice during this period, in 1964 when he appeared in Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone episode "Caesar and Me", in the 1968 TV-movie Shadow on the Land.
Cooper began appearing in character roles. In the fourth season of Hawaii Five-O, he played a doctor who murders his wife and bribes an innocent man to take the rap in The Burning Ice, he appeared as a murderous political candidate in Candidate for Crime starring Peter Falk as Columbo in 1973, in the short-lived 1975 ABC series Mobile One, a Jack Webb/Mark VII Limited production. He guest-starred in a 1978 two-part episode of The Rockford Files: The House on Willis Avenue. Cooper’s work as director on episodes of M*A*S*H and The White Shadow earned him Emmy awards. Cooper found renewed fame in the 1970s and 1980s as Daily Planet editor Perry White in the Superman film series, starring Christopher Reeve. Cooper got the role after Keenan Wynn, cast as White, became unavailable after suffering a heart attack. In the commentary track for Superman, director Richard Donner reveals that Cooper, who had auditioned for the part of Otis, Lex Luthor's henchman, received the role because he had a passport and was available to shoot in England on short notice.
Cooper's final film role was as Ace Morgan in the 1987 film Surrender, starring Sally Field, Michael Caine, Steve Guttenberg. Cooper served in the United States Navy during World War II and remained active in the reserves for the next several decades, reaching the rank of Captain, he was married to June
Edgar Buchanan
William Edgar Buchanan II was an American actor with a long career in both film and television, most familiar today as Uncle Joe Carson from the Petticoat Junction,:828 Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies television sitcoms of the 1960s. On Petticoat Junction, he took over as proprietor of the Shady Rest Hotel following the 1968 death of show star Bea Benaderet, who had played Kate Bradley. In 1969, in the episode "Kathy Jo's First Birthday Party", he appeared with Buck; the son of Dr. and Mrs. William Edgar Buchanan, he was born in Humansville and moved with his family to Oregon when he was seven. In 1928, he earned a DDS degree from North Pacific College School of Dentistry, which became Oregon Health & Science University School of Dentistry, his wife Mildred and he, classmates in dental school, were married in 1928, the year. They had a son named Buck. In 1939, they moved from Eugene, Oregon, to Altadena, where they moved their dental practice, he joined the Pasadena Playhouse as an actor.
He appeared in his first film in 1939, at the age of 36, after which he turned his dentistry practice over to his wife. He was a member of a Freemason. Buchanan appeared in more than 100 films, including Texas where he played a dentist and starred with William Holden and Glenn Ford and in Penny Serenade with Cary Grant, the Town Too Tough to Die, The Talk of the Town with Ronald Colman and Jean Arthur, The Man from Colorado, Cheaper by the Dozen, She Couldn't Say No, Ride the High Country with Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea, McLintock! with John Wayne, Move Over, Darling with Doris Day and James Garner, Benji. Among the many television series in which he was cast as a guest star were Cimarron City, The Californians, The Rifleman Edgar appeared in six episodes of The Rifleman, playing Grandpa Fogerty in “The Long Goodbye” and Doc Burrage in the other five: “The Pet”, “The Second Witness”, “The Trade”, “The Deadly Wait”, “The Angry Man”; the episode "Duel at Sundown" of Maverick with James Garner and Clint Eastwood, Leave It to Beaver, The Twilight Zone, Gunsmoke, Route 66, Bringing Up Buddy, Bus Stop, The Lloyd Bridges Show.
Buchanan's roles as a regular cast member in television programs included Red Connors in the syndicated Western Hopalong Cassidy, J. J. Jackson in the CBS crime drama Cade's County. In 1956, Buchanan portrayed the lead in the 39-episode syndicated Western television series, Judge Roy Bean, set in Langtry and filmed in color in California. Only loosely based on the career of the legendary storekeeper and justice of the peace, Roy Bean, the series had supporting roles for Jack Buetel, Jackie Loughery, Russell Hayden as a Texas Ranger; the series popularized Bean's claim to having been "The Only Law West of the Pecos", a reference to the Pecos River in Val Verde County in southwestern Texas. From 1960 to 1962, he appeared four times on the NBC Western series Laramie, Buchanan made two guest appearances on Perry Mason: in 1958 as a small-town coroner in "The Case of the Perjured Parrot" and in 1962 as a small-town judge in "The Case of the Lurid Letter". Buchanan appeared as Uncle Joe Carson in all 222 episodes of Petticoat Junction, the only actor from the show to do so, as well as in 17 episodes of Green Acres,:416 and three episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies.
Another star from Petticoat Junction and he appeared together in the 1974 movie Benji. In 1967, Dot Records released "Phantom 309", a narration by Buchanan; the 45 rpm single was backed with "Cotton Picker". Buchanan died from a stroke complicated by pneumonia in Palm Desert and was interred in the Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. Edgar Buchanan on IMDb Edgar Buchanan at the TCM Movie Database Edgar Buchanan at AllMovie Edgar Buchanan at Find a Grave
Robert Florey
Robert Florey was a French-American director, film journalist and actor. Born as Robert Fuchs in Paris, he became an orphan at an early age and was raised in Switzerland. In 1920 he worked at first as a film journalist as an assistant and extra in featurettes from Louis Feuillade. Florey moved to the United States in 1921; as a director, Florey's most productive decades were the 1930s and 1940s, working on low-budget fillers for Paramount and Warner Brothers. His reputation is balanced between his avant-garde expressionist style, most evident in his early career, his work as a fast, reliable studio-system director called on to finish troubled projects, such as 1939's Hotel Imperial, he directed more than 50 movies. His most popular film is the first Marx Brothers feature The Cocoanuts of 1929, his 1932 foray into Universal-style horror, Murders in the Rue Morgue is regarded by horror fans as reflective of German expressionism. In 2006, as his 1937 film Daughter of Shanghai was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, Florey was called "widely acclaimed as the best director working in major studio B-films".
Florey grew up in Paris near the studio of George Melies, as a young man served as assistant to Louis Feuillade. He was an assistant director on L'orpheline, Parisette, he went to Hollywood in 1921 as a journalist for Cinemagazine. He worked as foreign publicity director for Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford and was European advance managed for Rudolph Valentino, he was an assistant director on Parisian Nights. He went to MGM where he was an assistant on The Masked Bride, Exquisite Sinner, Bardelys the Magnificent, La Bohème and The Magic Flame, he shot newsreel footage in New York. Florey's first film as director was One Hour of Love for Tiffany Productions, he Face Value for Stirling Pictures. He was assistant on The Woman Disputed. In the late 1920s he produced two experimental short films: The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra co-directed with Slavko Vorkapić, Skyscraper Symphony the following year, he directed the shorts Johann the Coffinmaker, The Love of Zero, Hello New York! with Maurice Chevalier, Pusher-in-the-Face from a script and story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Florey accepted a contract to direct at Paramount Pictures, where he made The Hole in the Wall with Claudette Colbert and Edward G. Robinson and The Cocoanuts, the first film of the Marx Brothers, he directed a short with Fanny Brice, Night Club and made The Battle of Paris with Gertrude Lawrence. Florey went to England to direct a French musical The Road Is Fine and to Germany for My Wife's Teacher, a Spanish language version of the film Rendezvous. While in Germany he directed Love Songs, he did White with Raimu, co-directing with Marc Allegret. Florey made a significant but uncredited contribution to the script of the 1931 version of Frankenstein. Florey was to be given the job of directing Frankenstein, filmed a screen test with Bela Lugosi playing the monster, but Universal Pictures wound up giving the job to James Whale, who cast Boris Karloff. Instead Universal assigned Lugosi to Murders in the Rue Morgue. Florey, with the help of cinematographer Karl Freund and elaborate sets representing 19th century Paris, made Murders into an American version of German expressionist films such as Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Florey directed The Man Called Back with Conrad Nagel for Tiffany Pictures, Those We Love with Mary Astor. He wrote the script for a version of A Study in Scarlet. Florey went to Warner Bros where he made directed a number of "B" movies: Girl Missing with Glenda Farrell and Ben Lyon, Ex-Lady with Bette Davis, The House on 56th Street with Kay Francis, Bedside with Warren William, Registered Nurse with Bebe Daniels, Smarty with Joan Blondell and William, I Sell Anything with Pat O'Brien,I Am a Thief with Astor, The Woman in Red with Barbara Stanwyck, The Florentine Dagger with Donald Woods, he did some uncredited work on Go Into Your Dance with Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler and was assistant director on I've Got Your Number. He did some location filming in China for Oil for the Lamps of China. Florey directed Going Highbrow with Guy Kibbee, Don't Bet on Blondes with William, The Payoff with James Dunn, Florey went to Paramount where he directed Ship Cafe with Carl Brisson, The Preview Murder Mystery with Reginald Denny, Till We Meet Again with Herbert Marshall, Hollywood Boulevard with John Halliday and a young Robert Cummings, Outcast with William, King of Gamblers with Claire Trevor and Lloyd Nolan, Mountain Music with Bob Burns and Martha Raye, This Way Please with Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Betty Grable, Daughter of Shanghai with Anna May Wong, Dangerous to Know with Wong, King of Alcatraz with Gail Patrick and Nolan.
He did some uncredited work on Rose of the Rancho. His films were marked by fast pace, cynical tone, Dutch angles, dramatic lighting. Florey directed Hotel Imperial with Isa Miranda and Ray Milland, The Magnificent Fraud with Akim Tamiroff and Nolan, Death of a Champion with Lynne Overman, Parole Fixer from a book by J. Edgar Hoover, Women Without Names with Ellen Drew. Florey went to Columbia for The Face Behind the Mask with Peter Lorre, Meet Boston Blackie
