The Encyclopedia of Feature Players of Hollywood, Volume 1

By Tom Goldrup and Jim Goldrup

Learn from the following actors and actresses what it was like for the feature players of Hollywood working in films during its Golden Era. Read of their often humorous and exciting stories as they lived out their lives & careers behind and in front of the camera.

Featured in this volume:

Peter Adams
John Agar
Chris Alcaide
John Alvin
John Anderson
Richard Anderson
Michael Ansara
John Archer
R.G. Armstrong
Luke Askew
George Barrows
Gregg Barton
Billy Barty
Hal Baylor
Ed Begley
Billy Benedict
James Best
Lyle Bettger
Whit Bissell
Lane Bradford
Robert Bray
Rand Brooks
James Brown
Robert Brubaker
William Bryant
William Campbell
Harry Carey Jr.
Olive Carey
Anthony Caruso
Wally Cassell
Virginia Christine
Matt Clark
John Cliff
Phyllis Coates
Tristram Coffin
Faith Domergue
Robert Donner
John Doucette
Robert Douglas
Warren Douglas
Andrew Duggan
Sam Edwards
Jack Elam
Ross Elliott
Robert Emhardt
Richard Emory
Leif Erickson
Gene Evans
Jason Evers
Tommy Farrell
Fritz Feld
Evelyn Finley
Terry Frost

About the Authors

Tom and Jim Goldrup, sons of Eugene and Fernita (McKillop) Goldrup, were born in Palo Alto, California, and raised in the historic town of Sonoma in that state. They, with older brothers Bill and Ray, had a strong love of the movies, which was aided by their father building their first television set in 1949. After growing to adulthood, Ray made a living as a screenplay writer, and Tom and Jim pursued a less successful career as actors. They also turned to writing, having a book, Growing Up on the Set, a book based on former child performers in Hollywood, published in 2001. They have also interviewed over one hundred and fifty actors—these interviews serve as the basis for this book. They reside in Ben Lomond, California, where they are active in the local theater. In between their writing and acting they enjoy travel, having recently visited Nepal and India where they trekked in the Himalaya Mountains.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BearManor Media
• Release date: Aug 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370099108

Book preview

The Encyclopedia of Feature Players of Hollywood, Volume 1

© 2012 Tom and Jim Goldrup. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopying or recording, except for the inclusion in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This version of the book may be slightly abridged from the print version.

BearManorBear-EBook

Published in the USA by:

BearManor Media

PO Box 1129

Duncan, Oklahoma 73534-1129

www.bearmanormedia.com

ISBN 978-1-59393-293-0

Cover Design by Allan T. Duffin.

eBook construction by Brian Pearce | Red Jacket Press.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface: Ray Goldrup

Preface: Denver Pyle

Peter Adams

John Agar

Chris Alcaide

John Alvin

John Anderson

Richard Anderson

Michael Ansara

John Archer

R.G. Armstrong

Luke Askew

George Barrows

Gregg Barton

Billy Barty

Hal Baylor

Ed Begley

Billy Benedict

James Best

Lyle Bettger

Whit Bissell

Lane Bradford

Robert Bray

Rand Brooks

James Brown

Robert Brubaker

William Bryant

William Campbell

Harry Carey, Jr.

Olive Carey

Anthony Caruso

Wally Cassell

Virginia Christine

Matt Clark

John Cliff

Phyllis Coates

Tristram Coffin

Russ Conway

Jeff Corey

Robert Cornthwaite

John Crawford

Donald Curtis

Tom D’Andrea

Royal Dano

Gail Davis

Richard Devon

Faith Domergue

Robert Donner

John Doucette

Robert Douglas

Warren Douglas

Andrew Duggan

Sam Edwards

Jack Elam

Ross Elliott

Robert Emhardt

Richard Emory

Leif Erickson

Gene Evans

Jason Evers

Tommy Farrell

Fritz Feld

Evelyn Finley

Terry Frost

About The Authors

Acknowledgments

This book is dedicated to our parents, Eugene and Fernita (McKillop) Goldrup and to our very good friend, Walter Reed. The stories included in these volumes are based on personal interviews that the authors had with the performers. Seven of these were through correspondence; eight were interviews with the actor by telephone; eight were with the next of kin to the deceased featured player, one we were given permission by the daughter to use information from the journal and scrapbooks of her deceased father; and the remaining one hundred and thirty-six were done in person with the performer.

We wish to offer acknowledgements to the following people who helped in making these books possible. First and foremost, we thank each of the performers that are included in this volume of works who kindly granted us personal interviews. Another hearty thank you goes to our editor, Annette Lloyd, and the typesetter, Allan Duffin, for their many hours devoted to helping make this book possible. In addition, our gratitude goes out to: Ed Begley Jr., Jim Bobitushi, Beatrice Bratton, Jack Bray, Marion Carney, Eddie Firestone, Michael Fitzgerald, Bill Goldrup, Marilee Goldrup, Ray Goldrup, Sandy Grabman, Dorothy Harvey, Jamie, Nancy and Pat Haworth, Joe Haworth Jr., Edith Lane, Bob and Susan LaVarre, Jon Libby, Boyd and Donna Magers, Michelle McNair, John Nelson, Ray Nielsen, Ben Ohmart, Tony Paterson, Tony Phipps (of Screen Actors Guild), Frankie Prather, Mrs. Marshal Reed, Warner Richmond Jr., Ian Ritchie, Wayne Short, Reijo Sippola, Betty Strom, Susan Swann, and Frankie Thomas.

Preface

Ray Goldrup

As kids sitting in the dark of a theater on a Friday night or Saturday afternoon, and oftentimes both, my brothers and I became happily and helplessly lured and allured, if not intoxicated, by those celluloid men and women who allowed the stars to shine, those other people on the silver screen who most of us don’t stand in line to see, but without whose presence the guy on the white horse could not ride off into that sundown sky looking quite so brave or fine. In fact, it’s the others that made, and continue to make, it possible for us to feel as moved or awed by the Duke Waynes and all the other golden boys that share the brightest place in the spotlight of heroes! Those unsung many who quietly and sometimes not to quietly played out their celluloid lives so the rest of us could laugh and cry and dream. Better. The ones we don’t remember but somehow never can forget. The ones without whose help stories could not be told, let alone written. Without whom any principle actor or actress becomes, in literal essence, a lot of tinkling brass, full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing. I’m talking about the milk and flour and eggs of any good dramatic recipe: The feature players. A river is mightiest owing to the strength of its tributaries, and in my sincerest opinion, in stories, whether on stage or on film or on the printed page of script or novel, the feature players are indeed those tributaries.

As a screenwriter, I can honestly say that some of my best friends are imaginary people, most being those other people, because most of the characters in any given film are those that the principals must react to or be acted upon by.

It’s all the little stars that surround the sun, the big star, that, as a film writer, I take the most creative joy and pleasure in. That’s because within their ranks, the possibility of characters and character types are endless! Principle characters are bound by hero or heroine rules, the others aren’t, and they of necessity must not be, in order for the good guys to look good, in order for them to play their parts. Thus, just as in Van Gogh’s paintings, in which his wild and varied splashes of color are what give his renderings their greatest life and charm, so in the wild splashes of color of human kind that erupt on film, so comes a writer’s — at least this writer’s — highest natural high, the feature player. Therein oftentimes lies the most color, and is it not color that makes the ordinary extraordinary?

I salute the others from the depth of that ink well out of which pool my pen draws its greatest strength. The feature players. While you may not share the brightest light in the remembrance of film greats, you are the backbone of them all, and truly the backbone of all good film, the real unsung heroes of it all, and when the sun goes down, all those little stars are the ones that make the night sky what it is: a wonder to behold!

Ray Goldrup is a screen and television writer whose credits include the motion pictures Windwalker, Tiny Heroes and Princess and the Pea, and episodic television shows such as Gunsmoke, Little House on the Prairie, How the West Was Won, The Waltons, The New Land, and Grizzly Adams.

Preface

Denver Pyle

Sometime back, that’s an old man’s way of saying I don’t remember the date, I was walking through the Dallas airport. An old lady, typical of my groupies, came up to me and said, If I didn’t know you wuz dead, I would swear you wuz Denver Pyle. I put on my condescending, nice celebrity attitude and said, I am Denver Pyle, and I am not dead, thank you. She cocked her head with a knowing smile and said, You’re not Denver Pyle, and pulled her trailing tourister on to the people mover. It was not until sometime later, that I figured out the poor woman’s dilemma. She had mistaken me for Will Geer and got his name wrong.

This book, The Encyclopedia of Feature Players in Hollywood by the brothers Goldrup, could go far toward clearing up the poor lady’s problem. In this book they have gathered the lives and works of the great feature players that plied their trade when the Western picture was at its height of popularity.

These lives and works weave together an intimate history of the art of the Westerns. I was privileged to have worked with most of them and to call some of them friends.

I have watched, or been a part of scenes that were so charged with talent, they were almost an out-of-body experience. Whether you were just watching or participating, when the director yelled, ‘Cut,’ you would find yourself out of breath and drained. What a joyous experience. I know of no other profession where you can experience that feeling. I suspect that it may happen to musicians or artists; perhaps it has something to do with creativity.

I’m afraid that most of the great story tellers have left us, and our business has fallen into the hands of young men that measure a picture’s greatness by the size of the budget, and who’s background in literature seems to be limited to comic books. If you don’t believe this read the list of titles released in the past two years.

I am deeply grateful to the brothers for giving me this opportunity to express myself.

To my many friends named here, who have gone on, I say good-bye, and to those of you still here, I also say good-bye. Our time is past. I thank you for the great moments; the years of laughter and good times, and the privilege of working with you. Let us ride off into the sunset of the business, as we knew it, with fond memories and great pride in a job well done.

I love you all,

Denver.

Peter Adams

James Adams was born September 22, 1917, in Los Angeles, California, and went by the nickname of Peter since he was a small child. I was an inveterate movie goer as a child, recalled Peter, but did not really become interested in the theater or acting until I went to Williams College in Massachusetts. While there he heard of an open casting for an old melodrama titled Murder in the Old Red Barn and decided to read for it. In consequence of this audition, Peter received the part of the lead villain.

In 1937, one of the students named Gordon Kay (who later became a producer at Republic and Universal studios) started a summer stock company at Williams. Peter enlisted, and played the juveniles in Personal Appearance, Bill of Divorcement, and Accent on Youth.

The next summer, Peter told us, Helen Gahagan Douglas introduced me to the Woodstock Players in Woodstock, New York. I went there as an apprentice, and ended up as a member of Actors Equity Association and playing all the good parts in the plays on main stage. He spent two years there as leading man in such plays as Outward Bound, Room Service, Shadow and Substance (with Sinclair Lewis), and Love from a Stranger. After his stint at Woodstock, Peter returned home to Los Angeles, where he was tested at most of the big film studios. Peter made his film debut at Hal Roach Studios in a 1941 star-studded feature, Turnabout. The film starred Carole Landis, Adolphe Menjou, Mary Astor, William Gargan, and John Hubbard in a unique comedy about a husband and wife switching personalities thanks to a magic Buddha. Shortly afterwards, America entered World War II and Peter joined the US Navy and served in the South Pacific. At the close of the war, Peter left the Navy with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander.

Peter moved to the East Coast, settling in Brooklyn and played in Equity Library shows. Next, he was taken on as leading man at the Tamarack Summer Playhouse in Lake Pleasant, New York, where he spent one year appearing in various plays as Soldier’s Life, When Ladies Meet, Kind Lady, and First Love. After closing at Tamarack, Peter obtained a role in a musical melodrama in New York as a chorus boy and understudy for the lead. I wasn’t cut out to be a chorus boy and turned in my notice the day before they fired the lead from the play, Peter smiled. Malcolm Atterbury approached Peter and invited him to come as leading man at his winter stock company in Albany, New York. Peter accepted, and for the next two years was not only the lead in a number of plays including John Loves Mary, Man Who Came to Dinner, and Peg O’ My Heart, but also "the favorite role of my career in Voice of a Turtle and also my second favorite role, that of Robert Browning in The Barretts of Wimpole Street," remarked Peter.

Leaving Albany after his two year stay, Peter went on the road for a year for Brock Pemberton in Harvey, which co-starred James Dunn, Ernest Borgnine, and Jean Stapleton. In 1949, Peter returned to Los Angeles and went to work as leading man with the Tustin Summer Theater where they really did me in on their last production, Peter added, "when they did Knickerbocker Holiday and handed me the Walter Huston part with a peg leg and five songs. I got through it," he smiled. Peter spent one year at Tustin where he starred in such plays as Corn is Green, The Importance of Being Ernest, and The Taming of the Shrew.

While at Tustin Peter also began working in television and was then cast by King Vidor for a role in The Fountainhead with Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal. I have a scene with Miss Neal in the newspaper office. I remember Vidor was way up on a boom and nothing but her and I on that tremendous set. Peter’s first big role in a TV show was on an episode of Racket Squad with Reed Hadley. From that beginning, Peter has appeared in well over one hundred episodes of various television series. His credit list reads like a history of the TV Guide: Lux Video Theater, The Life of Riley, Donna Reed Show (in which he was originally considered for the part of Reed’s husband which subsequently went to Carl Betz), George Sanders Mystery Theater (in an episode titled Morning Boat To Africa, a great three character tale of betrayal and murder), Perry Mason, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Navy Log, Family Affair, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Mr. District Attorney, Science Fiction Theater, Dragnet, Letter to Loretta, Four Star Playhouse, Cavalcade of America, and such Western shows as Have Gun – Will Travel, Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, The Virginian, Rawhide, Gunslinger, Custer, Tales of Wells Fargo, 26 Men, and Shotgun Slade. In addition to these, Peter played the new commandant in four episodes of Disney’s Zorro, as well as a government agent in several of the Walt Disney Elfego Baca shows.

Peter was one of those actors who kept constantly busy on television during the 1950’s. Commenting on this, he once wrote us, "Just picked up a Rawhide script today with a nice part in it. Did an M-Squad last week, and about a month ago got socked in the jaw in a Mike Hammer. Last night they ran a Wells Fargo I was in and notice tonight they have the Tightrope episode I did going on. An actor as busy as Peter was on TV, he would play a wide variety of characters; he told us, I played a killer on Peter Gunn; a noted, but playboy, scientist who commits a hit and run before going into space in Men into Space; and the next week I became an owner of a saloon in Shotgun Slade. You never know in this business what sort of dreadful character you’re going to be next."

One television show that Peter especially enjoyed working on was the live television show Matinee Theatre in an episode starring Wendy Hiller that was based on an H.G. Wells story that Hiller’s husband had adapted from a play she had performed in on the London stage. She was absolutely delightful to work with. I played her very meticulous suitor who wanted to record everything he thought and did; and she was more for women’s suffrage.

Peter also appeared in thirty motion pictures in his career. On stage he was almost always the leading man; on television he was usually one of the guests or top support. In his motion pictures his roles were normally minor with several exceptions, such as the lead villain in Guy Madison’s Western feature, Bullwhip (which was filmed near Angels Camp in the California Sierras); the corrupt owner of a plantation near the penal colony which used prisoners as slave labor in Hell on Devil’s Island; and as the lead opposite Andrea King, Henry Brandon and his friend, Malcolm Atterbury, in Silent Fear. In this film Peter plays Pete Carroll, a man who leaves his lonely mine in the hills of Mexico for a holiday in Acapulco. Little does he dream that soon he will be battling a two ton monster of the deep, rescuing a beautiful girl from a school of man-eating sharks, and falling in love with Terry Perreau (Andrea King), a singer who is terminally ill. Peter relates on his experience on this film, which was shot entirely in Mexico: We had an American director (Edward Cahn) and producer and also had to have a Mexican director, and even though you did not use him you had to pay him. We had about one and a half months in Acapulco, a very nice location. I loved their working conditions, Peter added. We didn’t go to work till ten AM and got through by seven or eight PM, which was fine with me because I’m more of a night owl than a day owl.

A press book for Silent Fear reveals two interesting stories concerning Peter’s work in the movie. The thrilling sea battle between a lone fisherman and a giant two-ton mantaray was reacted in real life during filming of the picture off the coast of Mexico. The battle took place before the cameras for more than 48 hours as star Peter Adams fought the sea beast into submission. A more hazardous situation was described thusly: "Many Hollywood stars require daredevil stunt men and women to perform their hazardous feats before the motion picture cameras, but this is not the case with Andrea King and Peter Adams, stars of the tropical adventure drama, Silent Fear. During their grueling location in Mexico, both stars were faced by seemingly impossible barriers, including leaps into shark-infested waters. However, it became a game with Andrea and Peter as they tried to outdo one another and refused at all times to permit doubles to take the risks."

Among Peter’s other motion picture credits are the 1953 science fiction classic, War of the Worlds, The Loves of Omar Khayyam, Jailhouse Rock, and How to Murder Your Wife. Of War of the Worlds Peter relates, All the director said to me was ‘Peter, this is where the shit hits the fan.’ And it was. I was a forest ranger up in a tower and we were the first ones to sight the outer space people getting ready to land. So it was a minor part, but it started out the landings. The excitement was about to begin.

Speaking about the magic a make-up man can perform, he told us, "I was made up like a Persian to appear in The Loves of Omar Khayyam, but even my own brother couldn’t recognize me when we went to the preview. If you see it, I wear a white turban and a long pink coat, plus a beard, during the first half of the film, but once I get into armor I look like any other soldier." Reflecting on working with Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock, Peter mentioned, I don’t think he had a fight onscreen before. I did not want to get hit in the jaw, so I told him how to miss me and fortunately he did. But he breezed me so close that I went back into the chair and almost out the window. That would have been nice for the camera, but not for me. Sometimes after an actor works in a film the final result can be disappointing. Peter told of his experience with How to Murder Your Wife. The stag party in which I appear was almost entirely cut. The pay was good; the part got lost. Sometimes you can’t have everything, he smiled.

A publicity write-up sums the motion picture career of Peter Adams thusly: He has gambled with Omar Sharif, advised Doris Day, divorced Martha Hyer, cheated Elvis Presley, helped Glenn Ford, and plotted with Cornel Wilde.

In between his television and motion picture work Peter has remained busy acting on the stage in legitimate theater from California to New York. These credits include Abraham Cochrane in New York; Any Wednesday in Houston, Texas; Poor Richard in Traverse City, Michigan; the title role of Mr. Roberts in Hollywood; All the Way Home at the Pasadena Playhouse; Plain and Fancy, which was the first musical tent theater in the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles. I hadn’t done a musical in ten years, Peter stated, so when the opportunity arose, I jumped at it. Peter also toured in various US cities with Claudette Colbert in Marriage-Go-Round and A Community of Two, both of which I loved because she was such a charming woman, Peter concluded.

Looking back over his career as an actor, Peter noted, "When I was younger I really enjoyed it, but now it really isn’t important to me anymore. But, of course, the parts haven’t come along for me that held my interest, and I don’t have a consuming interest to act. Well, every now and then I think it would be nice to get back in a little bit, which I have recently with soaps, such as General Hospital and Capitol. I would rather do stage work than films because there is, in my point of view, more opportunity to get to know people and relate to them. Some people have no trouble in relating to the camera, but I just never fell in love with it. So I’d rather be on the stage, but I don’t live in New York."

Peter Adams passed away at his home in Beverly Hills, California, on January 8, 1987.

Film Credits: 1940: The Turnaround. 1949: The Fountainhead. 1952: Flat Top; Battle Zone; Ruby Gentry. 1953: Donovan’s Brain; Easy to Love; Project Moonbase; War of the Worlds. 1954: Her Twelve Men; Dragonfly Squadron; Brigadoon. 1955: You’re Never too Young; Silent Fear; Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell; Flame of the Islands; The Scarlet Coat. 1956: The Loves of Omar Khayyam; Ransom. 1957: Tip on a Dead Jockey; Hell on Devil’s Island; Jailhouse Rock. 1958: Bullwhip. 1959: The Big Fisherman. 1960: Midnight Lace. 1964: The Incredible Mr. Limpet. 1965: How to Murder Your Wife (scene deleted). 1966: Lord Love a Duck. 1968: Funny Girl.

John Agar

John Agar was born January 31, 1921 in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the Harvard School for Boys, which was a grammar school in Chicago. The year I got out of grade school, my family moved to Lake Forest, Illinois, which is about thirty-five miles north of Chicago on the way up to Waukegan, John related. As a matter of fact, it was on the 20th of June 1935 that my dad died of a heart attack. He hadn’t reached his forty-first birthday yet. In 1943, John’s mother moved her family from Lake Forest to Beverly Hills. I was in the service at the time, but she and my brothers and sister came out there then, he mentioned. He first served in the Navy Air Corps, but didn’t get all the way through it because of an infection in his inner ear which caused him some problems, so they gave him medical discharge. After he was out of the service for about four months, he went into the Army Air Corps where I was the physical training instructor for the next two and a half years or so, before I got out.

John never planned on an acting career. Just prior to the Civil War, John’s great grandfather founded the Agar Packing and Provision Company, which was located down in the stockyards of Chicago. That’s my background, he commented. John’s mother knew ZaSu Pitts, who lived in Brentwood. One Sunday they went to visit her. The neighbors were George and Gertrude Temple, the parents of a teenager named Shirley.

Shirley happened to come over that day. That was when she was about fifteen years old, and I was about twenty-two, and I just thought she was a nice little kid. I had watched her in films and all that. And then she went to school with my sister Joyce in Westwood, and all of a sudden, it was kind of crazy, but Shirley and I became involved and eventually we got engaged and then married. The two remained married only five years, divorcing in 1950.

I was still in the service, and I came home on a furlough and at a particular party I met the late David Selznick, John reflected. He asked me what I was going to do when I got out of the service, and I said I really hadn’t even thought about it, I didn’t know. He asked me if I had ever considered being an actor, and I said I’d never even been in a school play, I didn’t know anything about it. Selznick told him, I’d like to give you a test. John thought Selznick was kind of pulling my leg, and didn’t pay much attention to it, and went back to his base. A week or so later he received a letter in the mail from Selznick saying he wanted to give John a screen test, and mentioned if he thought that Agar had any abilities, he would sign him to a seven year contract, teach him, and pay John a hundred and fifty dollars a week. I’m making eighty-three dollars a month in the service, he told us. John thought, What the heck, I’ll give it a shot.

John got out of the service on January 29, 1946, Two days before my birthday, and that was the best birthday present I ever had, he laughed. "Anyway, a month or so later we did a scene from The Farmer’s Daughter, which Loretta Young won an Academy Award for. I don’t know why he signed me, because I saw the test and I thought it was terrible, I was so bad, but for some reason he did. About a year passed and John had been attending acting classes with other people who were under contract with David Selznick at the time. My mom and my sis went to Hawaii for a vacation, and coming back on the boat they met John and Mary Ford, and their daughter Barbara, John stated. When I went down to pick my mom and sis up, I met Mr. Ford, Mrs. Ford and Barbara. Mr. Ford had his offices with Marion Cooper, and they were on the same lot as David Selznick, which is RKO Pathé out in Culver City. A couple of weeks later I was told by Mr. Selznick to go over and see Mr. Ford. They were going to do a movie and were considering me for a part in it." The movie was originally titled War Party, but was later changed to Fort Apache. When he went into Ford’s office, John Ford had him standing at attention, looking right face, left face, about face, and asked him if he was ever in the service. John answered, Yes sir, I was. Ford asked him what branch, and John said the Army Air Corps. John Ford looked at him and said, Oh, you mean off we go in the wild blue yonder... crash? I looked at him and I thought this guy’s a funny guy, and I said, ‘Yes sir, I guess you’re right. Were you in the service Mr. Ford?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, I was in the U.S. Navy,’ and I said, ‘Oh you mean anchors away...sink, huh?’  John laughed.

Anyway, that was in 1947, he continued, and I got my first job in movies with people I had grown up watching, you know, Henry Fonda, John Wayne, Shirley Temple, Victor MacLaglen, Ward Bond, George O’Brien, Dick Foran. I mean people that I had watched for years and years growing up as a kid. I was just awed. We went up to Monument Valley and I sat around the set for about four days, just sitting there, watching, trying to see what they were all doing and maybe learn something. All of a sudden Mr. Ford hollered for me. He either had a pipe in his mouth, or he’d have a handkerchief. John Ford said, ‘John, I want you to...’ the rest of the words being garbled due to the pipe or the handkerchief in his mouth, ending with a clear ‘Do you understand?’ I said ‘Yes sir,’  Agar laughed. I was afraid to have to say that I didn’t understand. Anyway, we went ahead and did the shot. I tell you, it was so great, because all those people that I mentioned were all so helpful and so nice to me. It was just a pleasure. I was scared to death for the first twenty years I was in this business; let me tell you that right now. It’s just something that’s so hard to explain, that when I walk on a set to do a part, it’s like there’s a part of me that’s been dormant for a period of time, since the last time I was on a set, and now they push this button and I’m ready. It makes me feel so good. I guess I never grew up. Kids are always doing make-believe and stuff like that, and that’s part of my nature. I’m a big kidder and I love to do make-believe stuff.

John mentioned a movie in which he played a small part in 1989 called Night Breed, directed by Clive Barker and starring Canadian film director David Cronenberg. The Night Breed were people who lived in this graveyard area. Some of them could be killed by bullets, others only with fire; there were all different ways to eliminate them. They shot the picture and after it was finished they looked at it and it didn’t make any sense. So they wrote in a scene with an old character that explains about the Night Breed. I play this old man who lives out in the boondocks, and he’s got a little automobile shop. Cronenberg, playing the nutty psychiatrist, is trying to get rid of the Night Breed, and he comes out to this place where I am. My buddy is a stuffed coyote; I’m petting and talking to him. Anyway, they had to put this scene in there, otherwise the movie didn’t make any sense at all. That was kind of weird. They had me tied up in Christmas tree wires and bulbs as he tortured me, before he killed me.

Also in 1989 John appeared in Miracle Mile, which dealt with the hysteria surrounding an imminent nuclear invasion. Talking about this film, John mentioned, "It was competing against Batman and Ghostbusters II and it just got lost. I thought the movie was going to be very offensive to a lot of people. If it was done and released ten years before that it might have been received better because when it came out we were kind of getting away from the idea that there would be any kind of nuclear confrontation with Russia. But in the motion picture business who knows what’s going to go and what isn’t going to go? Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham are two very nice young people, and I enjoyed working with them."

We asked him about making Tarantula, and John remarked, We were up in the desert photographing where the tarantula comes over that mountain there. That’s what I mean by make-believe, having to use your imagination. I always thought that these movies would come out and maybe play for a little bit and then they’d throw them away. Amazing enough, there are people today, and this is thirty-five, forty years later, that still like that particular type of movie.

"I’ll tell you a funny story about The Mole People. At that particular time Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, George Nader, Jeff Chandler, were all being groomed by Universal. One day while we were filming a scene with the Mole People, Rock Hudson walks on the set; he looks around and looks at me and said, ‘Hey John, what the heck did you get yourself into here?’ " John laughed.

I always had the feeling that anybody I worked for had my best interest at heart and I always tried to do the best job I could for them, John continued. "I signed a contract in 1954 with Universal. The first thing I did was Revenge of the Creature, and then all they wanted me to do was science fiction movies. William Alland, who I guess was the producer of a lot of science fiction, would point the finger at me every time one would come along, and I kept thinking Rock, Tony, and George Nader were all doing movies that weren’t sci-fi, but normal goings on. I had been there for two years, and I think I had done one Western, which was Star in the Dust. Then I did a couple of movies on loan-out; one was Bait and the other Hold Back Tomorrow, but the rest of them were science fiction. John was wishing for more non sci-fi, but when they told him that they couldn’t make him any guarantees he told them, Well, no hard feelings, but I think I’ll just go free lance."

John started free lancing, "and I’m right back doing science fiction. Daughter of Dr. Jekyll came along, and Brain from Planet Arous, Journey to the Seventh Planet, all these things. Any one of those movies I always felt that once again they’d be out for a couple of minutes and that would be the end of it. They were crazy. About a year ago I was looking at the TV Guide and in that section where they sell prints of different movies, lo and behold, Brain from Planet Arous was one of the ones they were selling. I said jeepers creepers, he laughed, because the brain itself was nothing but a balloon. When we shot this one scene I said to Nathan Juran, the director, ‘Can’t we get something better than that?’ And he said, ‘Well, this is what they gave us.’ It really is strange, and it always amazes me, when I see young people today that like those films better than the ones that they’re making now. They got a heck of a lot better technical ways of making movies than what we had in those days. The special effects are far superior to what we had."

Hollywood Opening Night was the first live TV show to originate from the west coast, and was filmed at the NBC studio in Burbank. He and John Hodiak starred in Delaying Action for that series. That was a Korean war story, John related. He’s the sergeant and I’m supposed to be the goof-up in the group, and he’s always telling me to keep my gun clean and all this. They end up in a fox hole together near the end of the picture, and a Korean soldier sneaks up on them, and he’s supposed to wound Hodiak with a knife. I spot him and spin around and fire my gun, killing the guy. Well, this is live TV. Then I’m supposed to open up my first aid kit and start fixing up Hodiak’s wound. He says ‘Hey, you’re not a goof-up at all. You’re a pretty doggone on-the-ball kind of guy.’ The dress rehearsal went super. We get into this live shot and I turn around and I fire, and the gun doesn’t go off. I tell the guy playing the Korean, ‘Put your head down, I’m going to beat you to death.’ I pound him and then I come back to Hodiak. He’s got this wound on his arm and I get the first aid kit and I cannot get the thing open. That’s why I said ‘Live TV, you can stuff this.’ Too many things can go wrong and they’re right on top of you. If you’re on stage, you’re far enough away from the audience that you can fake an awful lot of stuff. But live television, boom, they’re right on you.

We asked John what he enjoyed most between stage and film. I did some stage work; not too much of it though. I really never enjoyed working on stage as much because it’s too repetitious. After a certain length of time it is no challenge to me. That’s why I’d rather be doing something different. After you approach a role and you try to find everything you can to dig out of that role to play, then it’s just a repetitious kind of deal, and trying to get yourself enthusiastic all the time is hard for me to do.

Did he enjoy making the Westerns? Oh yeah, I enjoyed them. When I was about eleven years old, my mom and dad sent me to a camp in Estes Park, Colorado in the summertime and I had my own horse. I had to feed it, take care of it, groom it, and the whole doggone thing for the whole summer, so I knew something about horses. Then when I was signed by Mr. Ford, he had a small ranch out in the Tarzana area, and had a mare out there that was named Apache. She was a big horse. Every morning I would go out and meet Jack Pennick, who was very close to Ford, and ride this horse. Finally when I came home one day, I was going to take a shower, and I started taking my clothes off, and my underwear stuck to me. I pulled it loose and I was raw, I was bleeding from all the rubbing. The next day I told Pennick about it and he said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what to do. Go down and get yourself some sea salt at the drug store, put it into the tub, and you’ll be fine.’ I put that salt in the tub, and when I got in and it hit that opened wound, I almost flipped out of there. Then Pennick went and told everybody on the set about it, John laughed.

We asked him if there was any film he made that he would consider a favorite, and John answered, People ask me that many times, and I always say that I haven’t made it yet. I liked every one of them for a different reason, such as the people that were in the shows; just different reasons. I enjoy this part of me that comes alive when I get an opportunity, and it’s just a lot of fun.

We inquired about what hobbies he enjoys. I love to play golf, he told us. John won the 1962 tournament in Long Beach by one shot. I’ve been playing that game since I was a little boy in 1928. We asked what other things he enjoyed doing when he was young. I liked sports. I played some football, basketball. I did five events in track. When I was in prep school I went to a school in upper state New York, and I broke the shot-put record up there that stood for twenty-seven years. The record was forty-seven feet, eleven inches, and I put it fifty-two feet and something. You know what they do in high school and prep school today with that twelve pound shot-put? Seventy something feet, John laughed. It’s incredible. Kids today are so much bigger.

Talking about John Wayne, whom Agar had worked with in a number of films, John told us, "Duke was my senior by at least fourteen years, and we had different ideas. He liked to play cards, bridge and stuff like that, and fish, and as I said earlier, my passion was golf. But I always had tremendous respect for him, and I would always call him up on holidays and wish him a merry Christmas and a happy new year, but we didn’t work together for twenty years. The last thing we did was Sands of Iwo Jima in 1949, and I didn’t work with him again until 1969 in a movie called The Undefeated, and I bet you can’t even find me in it, he laughed. There was one scene I felt was important to the movie, but evidently they didn’t think it was. We were having this horse drive, and a number of guys that followed him through the Civil War and were working on the drive had serious physical problems. I’ve forgotten what the problem was, whether it was diphtheria or whatever, and they weren’t going to make it through all the way. So we had this one scene where I know I just can’t go on any further, and Duke knows that it’s just a question of time before I go under, and we’re both almost in tears. But for whatever reason the director or the producer cut that particular scene out, and the rest of the time we all had beards and stuff like that, so it would be hard to notice me. This was the only real scene I had in the whole movie. Then I did Big Jake with him, and I also did Chisum. One movie I sure wanted to be in was The Searchers, but I guess it wasn’t my part, because Jeff Hunter got it and I thought he did a very good job."

John and his wife Loretta had been married forty years when we met with him. They were married on May 16, 1951. She’s a terrific girl; she is a great gal, he told us.

We asked him how he would like to sum up his feelings on his acting career thus far. Well, I tell you, one thing is being able to work with the people that I worked with. It was a tremendous privilege. One thing I feel very strongly about was that we had morals and decency and respect in those days which I think is sadly lacking in our society and films today. As a matter of fact, the kind of stuff that they ask of young actors and actresses today, I never would have gotten into the business; no way. I’d say pass. Even today if I’m up for any particular role, and they’re looking for grandpas or whatever, if there is anything that is profane or lacks morals, I say pass, you can find somebody else to play the part because I won’t do it. I have too much respect for myself. That’s the way I feel. It’s not a question of thinking that they’re bad people; I just think that they’re not thinking along the lines that this country was founded on. I think films, the media, television, newspapers and magazines and all that, create a lot of society’s problems by what they print and what they say. I really firmly believe that. For example, sometimes sick people are glorified on television, and you’ve got other people that are sitting out there watching all this. Maybe there’s a few of them whose elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top, and they’re going to say, ‘Hey, I’m going to get recognized too,’ and go out and do the same doggone thing. I think that’s sad.

In 1991, John was in Perfect Bride. It was a movie that came out on USA a couple of months back. It was with Sammi Davis, that little English actress, and Kelly Preston. I play the grandpa in that. A buddy of mine, John Larch, heard. I told him I was going to play a ninety year old grandpa, and he said, ‘Don’t worry about it Agar, they got make-up ... They can tone you down,’  John laughed.

John passed away at Burbank, California on April 7, 2002.

Film Credits: 1948: Fort Apache. 1949: Adventures in Baltimore; I Married a Communist. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon; Woman on Pier 13; Sands of Iwo Jima. 1950: Breakthrough. 1951: Along the Great Divide; Magic Carpet. 1952: Woman of the North Country. 1953: Man of Conflict.1954: Bait; Shield for Murder; The Rocket Man; Golden Mistress.1955: Lonesome Trail; Revenge of the Creature; Tarantula. 1956: Hold Back Tomorrow; Mole People; Star in the Dust. 1957: The Flesh and the Spur; Joe Butterfly; Daughter of Dr. Jekyll; Ride a Violent Mile; The Brain from Planet Arous. 1958: Jet Attack; Attack of the Puppet People; Frontier Gun; Through Hell and Glory. 1959: Invisible Invaders; Destination Space (TV). 1960: Raymie. 1961: Journey to the 7th Planet; Lisette (aka Fall Girl). 1962: Hand of Death. 1963: Young and the Brave; Cavalry Command; Of Love and Desire. 1964: Young Fury; Law of the Lawless. 1965: Stage to Thunder Rock; Johnny Reno; Women of the Prehistoric Planet. 1966: Waco; Zontar, the Thing from Venus; The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. 1967: Night Fright; The Curse of the Swamp People. 1968: Hell Raiders. 1969: The Undefeated; 1970: Chisum. 1971: How’s Your Love Life. 1972: Big Jake. 1976: King Kong. 1981: Mr. No Legs. 1982: Divided We Fall (short). 1988: Miracle Mile; Perfect Victims. 1990: Fear; Night Breed. 1991: The Perfect Bride. 1992: Crossed Sabres (documentary); Invasion of Privacy (TV). 1993: Body Bags (TV). 1995: The Pandora Device (Computer game/movie). 2001: The Vampire Hunters Club.

Chris Alcaide

Chris Alcaide was born October 23, 1922, in the steel mill town of Youngstown, Ohio. What was it like growing up in Youngstown? Chris reflected, Not very nice. I never cared for it but there were some wonderful people there. I didn’t like the town. The most impressive thing to do was to be tough, so naturally I got into golden gloves. The day after it would snow there would be a layer of soot on top of the snow. My father was fortunately in a position of management, but it was dirty. Slushy. So when Chris was sixteen years old he stuck out his thumb and hitched to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, and while there he won a free telephone call back to his hometown. He was taken to the Working Press Building, where the story was syndicated throughout the country of how he hitched to the Fair on only three dollars and sixty-two cents. Finally I got a press card and was hired by the New York Daily Mirror for twenty six dollars and fifty cents a week, he mused. And, lying about my age, I came back in 1940 and worked the Fair again driving a little inter-fair motor taxi. From that time on they came and got me to make sure I finished schooling in Youngstown.

In 1942, Chris decided to come west to see California before going into the service. I didn’t go in for a while, and through an accident meeting of a few people I ended up at the Hollywood Palladium one night with a bouncer who became involved in a little fracas and I helped him out, and was hired as his junior partner. I stayed there till I went into the service in June 1943. After his discharge from the service in January of 1946, Chris returned to his home in Ohio for a short time, and by March was back in California working at the Hollywood Palladium. It’s funny, in Hollywood in those years you got all kinds of approaches toward the movie business. I had never in my mind ever said I want to be an actor, even though I was a great movie fan, but for me to say I want to be an actor, that was a real departure.

Chris had left his employment at the Palladium, and although contacts had been made with people in the movie business Chris had not looked into this possible career. Finally, a very bright man said to me, ‘Before you get into this why don’t you find out if you like it,’ and recommended that I join a theatre group, Chris reflected. The idea had been planted but he put off seeking a theatre group for some time. One day a friend named John Veitch, who worked at the Palladium, asked Chris if he could come back to work there for two weeks and substitute for him while he performed in a stage play for the Ben Bard Players. He agreed to cover for his friend and thought more about taking a stab at the acting business himself. Ultimately, Chris ended up at Ben Bard’s and after two weeks they cast him in a play, and two months later was offered a screen test at MGM. That hung me up on an option for some time, Chris recalled, but that never really worked because I was not there straight leading man type. Chris continued working various jobs, one being at Dave’s Blue Room out on the strip that was the super’s club for gangsters and movie stars after the bars closed at midnight. He continued appearing in plays at Ben Bard’s, one which led to another screen test at 20th Century Fox. The same thing, being under option but never really having anything happen, he commented.

In 1947, Chris was cast in a stage play of The Barrett’s Of Wimpole Street, and traveled up and down the west coast with the touring company. This play is always a good one for a period piece, he informed us. I did San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento...I enjoyed doing it.

Chris landed his first film role in a one day job in the 1950 Warner Brothers film, The Glass Managerie. He then returned to the Hollywood Palladium as head of the house office, later graduating to assistant manager, and finally became House Manager, and by this time he was also doing the announcing. After about a year without any further calls for film work, Chris told us that he called his agent and said, I am rested; do you have anything more for me? Nothing really started to happen for him until, through a friend, Chris met a director for lunch at Columbia. He asked me to come in and read for a part of a heavy for a Western, he noted. Chris obtained the role and played his first villain in a Durango Kid film titled Smoky Canyon. We did that in one week, he continued. Every time you see the Durango Kid in the black mask it was Jock Mahoney doubling for Charles Starrett, and he also played another part in the picture. Talking about his first day on a Western, Chris told us that, I was bulldogged off a horse twice and did three fights. He explained that in these older Westerns you used to block a lot of punches so when he got home after a day of fight scenes he would sit in a bath of Epsom salts. You don’t feel it out there, but you’re all bruised up. You got to where you wore knee and arm pads when you are the lead heavy because you did most of your own stunts. Finally, when I saw Chuck Roberson in my outfit I knew I’ve arrived because now I was being doubled. The other guy who doubled me a lot was Roy Jensen. Other Westerns with Charles Starrett and George Montgomery came his way on a regular basis at Columbia at the minimum union scale of two hundred dollars per week. After his third picture he received a raise in salary, and Chris mentioned, I was so happy to see my check come for two hundred and fifty dollars a week without an agent. Wasn’t that nice, they gave me a raise. But they didn’t give me a raise: minimum went up to two hundred and fifty a week, he laughed.

As offers for film work to be shot on location came his way, Chris turned down quite a few jobs as his work at the Palladium demanded his remaining in Hollywood. He decided something had to be done about this, so he lined up two location jobs, trained another person for his position at the Palladium, and resigned from his work there. The two pictures fell apart, Chris commented, and in the meantime I ran my little MG into a steel pole in Beverly Hills, crushing the center of my chest. That put me out of work for a while. While Chris was recuperating he obtained a few jobs at Columbia and, in 1953, obtained the small but showy part as Alexander Scourby’s bodyguard in The Big Heat. They liked his fight scene with Glenn Ford, and this film opened more doors for Chris at Columbia, with additional gangster parts in such films as Miami Story and Chicago Syndicate, as well as Western features like Overland Pacific and Black Dakotas. Another film was Monkey On My Back, starring Cameron Mitchell. Chris and Paul Richards played dope pushers who peddled their drugs to Mitchell in a film that was rumored may receive Oscar nominations, and although it did not obtain that stature, Monkey On My Back was a very good picture. I did for Mitchell the same thing I did for Glenn Ford: I let him bring both hands up underneath and I did a back-flip and came crashing down to the ground. It looks tremendous and doesn’t hurt you at all. Two years later when Peri (Chris’ wife) sees the picture, she starts rubbing my back, he laughed.

During this time of 1953-54, Chris worked regularly at Columbia to the extent that the head of talent there asked him to come in every day from nine to five and work out with the drama coach, and do scenes with some of their new talent that they were developing for film stardom. "I did scenes with a girl named Marilyn Novak, who became Kim Novak, and a girl named Donna Lee Hickey, who became Mae Wynn of The Caine Mutiny. I was there for over a year and if I didn’t work on a picture they still took good care of me. It was a nice quiet deal, Chris explained, and I was in the drama coach’s office every morning. It was a good background and education."

In 1954, Chris was offered a role at MGM in an Esther Williams picture called Jupiter’s Darling. It was horrible, he confessed, but it was a good run. We started in May at Catalina Island and we finished up in August at Silver Springs, Florida.

Besides his work on the big screen, Chris had worked some television for Columbia on some of their shows like Damon Runyon Theatre and Ford Theatre, but in the mid-1950s the TV Western series came into full bloom and he began to work in practically all of these shows. It is easier to tell you the Westerns I did not work than tell you the ones I did, he smiled. Chris was free-lancing at the time, and during one eighteen month period he was unemployed for only four weeks. Peri added, 1956, 1957 and 1958 was a Western dream; everybody was working, to which Chris replied, Yeah, but we overdid it, didn’t we really.

While working at Columbia, Chris met a man named Harry Joe Brown, who produced many of the Randolph Scott Westerns. Every time they would meet in the hallway, Brown would tell him, You’re gonna do the next one, buddy. I’ve seen your work and I love it. I never did one of the Randolph Scotts,’  Chris laughed. This story reminded him of another time when he was guesting on the Hondo TV series, which was produced at Metro by Bob Morrison, brother of John Wayne. After the second day’s rushes, the assistant director told Chris that Morrison had said, Where’s this guy been? We can use him in Wayne’s films. I thought for years I’ve been trying to get into that Wayne crowd, and it’s hard to break into, Chris reflected, and he says, ‘The next one you’re gonna do.’  Chris was never hired for a John Wayne film either.

Alcaide told us of a compliment he received one time from an unexpected source which goes to show the diversity of the characterizations he brought to his roles over the years. He was working on a Maverick episode playing a riverboat gambler named Tony Cadoz. Chris was listening to a conversation between a couple of crew members, when one asked the other, "Did you see Bonanza last night? Yeah, the second answered, That Captain Bolton with a wooden hand, what a nasty son of a bitch. Yeah, the first agreed. Chris then asked them, What are you talking about? They responded, Chris, you know, Bonanza last night. Chris replied, You’re kidding aren’t you? One answered, What do you mean, kidding? I was Captain Bolton, Chris informed them, to which one enlightened crew member responded, Son of a bitch, you’re right. And that is a compliment," Chris told us.

Chris continually worked show after show and then he and Peri were married. For the next six months it just stopped like that, Chris said, snapping his fingers. I started thinking, is she going to believe me that I am an actor. During this period Chris worked for six days or so, a day here and a day there. Then right after Christmas Chris was cast as a heavy in a Western titled Day of the Badman with Fred MacMurray, and worked on that for three weeks. That just turned everything around, and from that time I never stopped.

Of all the various studios he worked for, Chris informed us that Disney, more than any other studio, treated you like a prince. He was a lovely man. Chris worked for Disney on such shows as Zorro and Texas John Slaughter.

In the 1965 release, Flight of the Phoenix with James Stewart, one might view the movie and walk away unaware that Chris Alcaide appeared in it. The story line is about a group of men who work on an oil well somewhere out on the Sahara Desert, who periodically are flown to a town for a recreation break. On one such flight the plane goes off course and crashes in the desert. One of the men on board is an engineer who believes he can rebuild the plane, and the story focuses on their attempt to survive the situation they have been thrust into. Chris explains his part thusly: In the book it’s a good part; in the script, ehhh; in the picture, nothing. Before the plane crashes they could see a caravan of Arabs crossing the desert, so two of the survivors, a doctor and a colonel, walk to the Arab camp to see if they could get help. In the book, Chris continues, they meet the chief, have dinner and talk, then he cuts their throats and leaves them tied out by a lame camel. Well, I am the Arab chief. His experience with the film began when he got a rush call from Twentieth Century Fox to pick up tickets for sixteen stuntmen who are playing camel riders. Peri, who is from Turkey and acted there in a film with Errol Flynn titled Istanbul, taught Chris some Arabic words for the part. You know how mean those camels are, he explained, "Well I got a big one; Abdullah is the name of my camel who worked on The Ten Commandments.