William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, who typically played rough, blue-collar characters. He is best remembered for his role in Wake Island, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also portrayed the clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in both the radio and television versions of The Life of Riley, and baseball player Babe Ruth in The Babe Ruth Story. Bendix was a frequent co-star of Alan Ladd, the two appearing in ten films together; both actors coincidentally died in 1964.
Bendix in 1960
Poster for The Glass Key (1942)
Bendix as Riley with Sterling Holloway, 1957
Wake Island is a 1942 American action drama war film directed by John Farrow, written by W. R. Burnett and Frank Butler, and starring Brian Donlevy, Robert Preston, Macdonald Carey, Albert Dekker, Barbara Britton, and William Bendix. The film tells the story of the United States military garrison on Wake Island and the onslaught by the Japanese following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Wake Island (film)
Brian Donlevy, Mrs. Hermle, Major General John Marston, Colonel Leo D. Hermle, and Major Raymond W. Hanson at the film premiere