Lee Philips had the leading male role inthe movie “Peyton Place” opposite Lana Turner in 1957 but nothing he did before or afterwards acheived the same level of fame.   He was born in 1927 in New York.   He began his career on the stage and acted in several television shows before playing Dr Michael Rossi in the hughly successful “Peyton Place”.   It is odd that he did not then become a major star of film.   His subsequent movies include “The Hunters” in 1958 with Robert Mitchum and May Britt and “Middle of the Night” with Fredric March and Kim Novak.   He turned to television directing and had a very profilic career.   Lee Philips died in 1999 at the age of 72.

His Wikipedia entry{

Lee Philips (January 10, 1927 – March 3, 1999) was an American actor and director.

Philips’ acting career started on Broadway, and peaked with a starring role as Michael Rossi in the film adaptation of Peyton Place opposite Lana Turner.

In the 1960s his career shifted towards directing, with credits ranging from the television series of Peyton Place to The Dick Van Dyke Show. He still did occasional acting, such as his appearance in 1963 in “Never Wave Goodbye”, a two-part episode of The Fugitive. Also in 1963, he played a lead role in “Passage on the Lady Anne”, an hour-long episode of The Twilight Zone; he returned to the show the following year in the episode “Queen of the Nile”, where he plays a reporter named Jordan ‘Jordy’ Herrick. He appeared in Flipper in 1964 and also made two guest appearances on Perry Mason in 1965: as Kevin Lawrence in “The Case of the Golden Venom,” and murderer Gordon Evans in “The Case of the Fatal Fortune.” Also guest starred on the Combat!: episode: “A Walk with an Eagle”. He directed Dick Van Dyke on several episodes of Diagnosis: Murder. In 1973 he directed The Girl Most Likely to… starring Stockard Channing.

Philips died from progressive supranuclear palsy in 1999.

His Wikipedia entry can also be accessed online here.