Clint Walker obituary in “The Hollywood Reporter” in 2018.

Clint Walker, who flexed his considerable brawn — but only when he had to — as a gentle giant on Cheyenne, the landmark 1950s Western that aired for seven seasons on ABC, has died. He was 90. 

Walker, who also starred in such films as Send Me No Flowers (1964), None But the Brave (1965) and the World War II classic The Dirty Dozen (1967), died Monday of congestive heart failure in Grass Valley, California, his daughter Valerie said. !

With a chiseled 6-foot-6, 250-pound physique that showed off a 48-inch chest and 32-inch waist, the rugged, blue-eyed Walker was often hired for Westerns and action work. He was tough (and lucky) off the screen as well: He survived a 1971 skiing accident at Mammoth Mountain in California in which his heart was punctured by a ski pole and he was pronounced dead.

In 1955, Walker was cast by Warner Bros. in TV’s first-ever hourlong Western as Cheyenne Bodie, a principled cowboy drifter in the post-American Civil War era who was raised by the Cherokees who killed his parents. Cheyenne, produced by Roy Huggins of Maverick and Rockford Files fame, started out as part of Warner Brothers Presents in a rotation with the movie spinoffs Casablanca and Kings Row.

“I think they had all the leading men available in Hollywood to test for Cheyenne two days in a row, and they had me test with them,” Walker recalled in a 2012 interview for the Archive of American Television. “The first day I was very, very nervous. I could see all these people that I’d seen in pictures over the years and I thought, ‘I don’t stand a chance.’

“The second day, I thought, ‘I’m not going to get the job anyway so why don’t I just relax and enjoy it,’ which I did. Then the next thing I heard about four days later was Jack Warner reviewed all the stuff, pointed to me and said, ‘That is Cheyenne.'”SEE MOREBig Screen Giants: The 11 Tallest Movie Stars Ever

In 1958, Walker, now a household name, went on strike in a contract dispute, and while he was away, Warners replaced him with Ty Hardin as a character named Bronco Layne. When Walker returned to the series in 1959 after his deal was renegotiated, Hardin was given his own show. Cheyenne ran for 103 episodes until December 1962.

Walker, a baritone, also sang on Cheyenne, and the studio produced a 1959 album, Inspiration, with Walker and the Sunset Serenades performing traditional songs and ballads.

Norman Eugene Walker, a twin, was born May 30, 1927, in Hartford, Illinois. He fashioned his own weights out of concrete, joined the Merchant Marine at age 17 and toiled on a riverboat, in a paper mill and on an oil field. Working security at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, he met show-business types who encouraged him to try his luck in Hollywood.

Not surprisingly, Walker’s first role came as an uncredited Tarzan in the Bowery Boys film Jungle Gents (1954).

He heard Cecil B. DeMille was looking for muscular men to cast for his 1956 epic The Ten Commandments. Walker got an appointment with the intimidating director, but on the way to Paramount, he stopped on the freeway to change a flat tire for a woman.

“You’re late, young man,” Walker recalled DeMille saying when he arrived. When he told the director the reason why, DeMille replied, “Yes, I know all about it. That [woman you helped] was my secretary.”

Walker got a small part in the picture.

After Cheyenne got hot, he starred in the title role of Yellowstone Kelly (1959), playing a fur trapper who because of his friendship with the Sioux refuses to join with the U.S. Cavalry in a 1876 raid against the tribe. That movie was sandwiched between the Westerns Fort Dobbs (1958) and Gold of the Seven Saints (1961).

Walker received second billing to Frank Sinatra in None But the Brave, a World War II saga set in the South Pacific that Sinatra also directed. Walker then starred as Big Jim Cole in the adventure movie The Night of the Grizzly (1966), which he said was his favorite film to do.

The big man hit his stride with The Dirty Dozen, which starred Lee Marvin as a hardscrabble officer stuck with the dirty duty of penetrating a German fortress, accompanied by 12 condemned soldiers who have nothing to lose. Walker played Samson Posey, who had been convicted of murder. In his best scene, Marvin goads Walker into flashing his temper, attacking him with a knife before disarming the much bigger guy.

(Years later, Walker lent his authoritative voice to the role of Nick Nitro in Joe Dante’s 1998 animated film Small Soldiers. Dirty Dozen co-stars Ernest Borgnine, Jim Brown and George Kennedy also had roles.)

The good-natured Walker also appeared in much frothier entertainment, most notably in the light comedy Send Me No Flowers (1964) with Rock Hudson, Doris Day and Tony Randall.

He continued to work steadily late in 1960s with roles in Sam Whiskey, More Dead Than Alive and The Great Bank Robbery, all released in 1969. He co-starred in The White Buffalo (1977), one of the quirkiest Westerns ever made, in which Charles Bronson limned Wild Bill Hickok in pursuit of an albino buffalo.

During the 1970s, Walker was seen in the telefilms Yuma from Aaron Spelling, Hardcase and The Bounty Man and in Pancho Villa (1972). He starred in a shortlived Alaska-set series titled Kodiak, in which he played the title character, an Alaska State trooper.

Walker made numerous guest-star appearances on a wide range of TV shows during his career, including on The Jack Benny Program, Maverick, The Lucille Ball Show and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.

Duane Byrge contributed to this report.

The Times obituary in 2018.

Having heard that Cecil B DeMille was looking for muscular actors to cast for his biblical epic The Ten Commandments, Clint Walker was on his way to audition for the famously intimidating Hollywood director in 1955 when he spotted a woman standing by a stranded car on the side of the freeway.

Although he was an unknown aspirant on his way to an appointment that he hoped would land him his big break in the world of films, he gallantly stopped to change her burst tyre. When Walker eventually arrived at the Paramount studio, considerably less presentable than when he had set out, DeMille looked him up and down. “You’re late, young man,” he said sternly.

Fearing that his career was over before it had started, Walker desperately began to explain the cause of his delay, only for the director to cut him short. “Yes, I know all about that,” he said. “It was my secretary.”

DeMille cast Walker as the captain of the guard to the Pharaoh Rameses, played by Yul Brynner. It was his first credited part and led in the same year to his best-known role, as the lead character in the pioneering TV western Cheyenne. Walker played Cheyenne Bodie, a rugged yet big-hearted cowboy drifter who fought baddies and dished out frontier justice.

He got the part over a number of more famous actors. “They had all the leading men available in Hollywood to test for Cheyenne two days in a row,” he recalled. “The first day I was very nervous. I could see all these people that I’d seen in pictures over the years and I thought, ‘I don’t stand a chance.’ ” By the second day he had decided to “relax and enjoy it”. A week later he was told that Jack Warner, the head of Warner Brothers, had reviewed the screen tests, pointed at Walker and said: “That is Cheyenne.”

Initially paid $175 an episode (about £1,200 today), he joked that he had only got the role because he was cheap. Yet it was easy enough to see why Warner was prepared to take a gamble on the unknown actor. With his blue eyes, chiselled features and muscular physique, every inch of Walker’s rugged 6ft 6in frame resembled the perfect romantic image of a cowboy: from chest to waist to hip he measured 48-32-36. Such appeal meant that his shirt came off in an astonishing number of episodes. According to The New York Times, he was “the biggest, finest-looking western hero ever to sag a horse, with a pair of shoulders rivalling King Kong’s”.

His non-acting CV lent him an impressive authenticity too. He had worked on Mississippi riverboats, in the Texas oil fields and as a carnival roustabout before ending up as a deputy sheriff in Las Vegas. There he lived in a trailer and encountered the showbusiness types who frequented the casinos, including the actor Van Johnson, who had just starred in Brigadoon with Gene Kelly and suggested he try his hand in Hollywood.

Walker eagerly embraced the idea and headed for Los Angeles. “I’m not going to get that far carrying a gun and a badge, and it doesn’t pay that well,” he reasoned. “If you make movies, you make good money — plus the bullets aren’t real!”

The only attribute he lacked as a convincing cowboy was that he had never been on horseback. His height meant that he was impressively tall in the saddle, but when filming of the first series began, he confessed to considerable nervousness when he was required to mount his steed. “You’ll either be a good rider or a dead one,” he was told. There were times when he “wondered which one it was going to be”.

In Long Beach, California, he worked as an agent for a detective agency and in Las Vegas he combined his duties as deputy sheriff with working for security at the Sands Hotel and Casino.

By the time he arrived in Hollywood he was married to Verna Garver, a waitress, with whom he had a daughter. They divorced in 1968 and he married the actress and dancer Giselle Hennessy. After her death in 1994 he married Susan Cavallari, who survives him. They made their home in Grass Valley, California, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. He is also survived by Valerie Walker, his daughter from his first marriage, who is a retired pilot and was one of the first women to fly for a leading airline.

At the height of Cheyenne’s success Walker went on strike for nine months in a contract dispute with Warner Brothers and was replaced by a Bodie clone called Bronco Layne, who was played by Ty Hardin (obituary, August 14, 2017). When Walker returned on improved terms, Hardin was given his own spin-off series.

After Cheyenne finished, his most notable film appearances included None but the Brave, Frank Sinatra’s only movie as a director, and The Dirty Dozen, in which he had a memorable fight scene with Lee Marvin.

He survived a skiing accident in 1971 in the Sierra Nevada when his heart was punctured by a ski pole. “They rushed me to a hospital, where two doctors pronounced me dead,” he said. Fortunately a third doctor thought he could detect the faintest pulse and Walker was given open-heart surgery. Two months later he was back at work on the set of the movie Pancho Villa.

One of his final appearances before retirement came in 1995, when he reprised the character of Cheyenne Bodie in an episode of the TV series Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.

“I feel action is what I owe the public,” he once said. “When I see a hero yak-yak-yakkin’ I lose all interest.”

Former blonde starlet who played Laurence Harvey’s love interest in “The Manchurian Candidate” (1960) and later fledging producer with husband Richard Bach, author of “Jonathan Livingston Seagull.”

Leslie Parrish (born Marjorie Hellen; March 13, 1935) is an American actress, activist, environmentalist, writer, and producer. She worked under her birth name for six years, changing it in 1959.

As a child, Leslie Parrish lived in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. At the age of 10, she finally settled in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania. At the age of 14, Parrish was a talented and promising piano and composition student at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music.  At the age of 16, Parrish earned money for her tuition by working as a maid and a waitress, and by teaching piano. At the age of 18, to earn enough money to be able to continue her education at the Conservatory, her mother persuaded her to become a model for one year.

In April 1954, as a 19-year-old model with the Conover Agency in New York City, Parrish was under contract to NBC-TV as “Miss Color TV” (she was used during broadcasts as a human test pattern to check accuracy of skin tones). She was quickly discovered and signed with Twentieth Century Fox in Hollywood. In 1956, she was put under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Because acting allowed her to help her family financially, she remained in Hollywood and gave up her career in music.

Parrish co-starred/guest-starred in numerous films and television shows throughout the 1960s and 1970s. She first gained wide attention in her first starring role as Daisy Mae in the movie version of Li’l Abner (1959), where she changed her name from Marjorie Hellen to Leslie Parrish at the director’s request. She appeared in the film The Manchurian Candidate (1962), playing Laurence Harvey‘s on-screen fiancée , Jocelyn Jordan. Other film credits include starring opposite Kirk Douglas in For Love or Money (1963) and Jerry Lewis in Three on a Couch (1966), among others.

Parrish amassed an extensive résumé of television credits.^[9] Among many other credits, Parrish appeared in guest starring roles on episodes of The Wild Wild West, My Three Sons, Perry Mason, Family Affair, Bat Masterson, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Adam-12, Good Morning World, Police Story, Batman and McCloud. In 1967, she guest-starred on Star Trek in the season two episode entitled “Who Mourns For Adonais?” She portrayed Lt. Carolyn Palamas, the love interest of the character Apollo, played by Michael Forest.  In February 1968, she played opposite Peter Breck in an episode of The Big Valley entitled “A Bounty on a Barkley”.  The following month, Parrish made her first guest appearance on Mannix in the episode “The Girl in the Frame.”

Parrish was the Associate Producer on the film version of Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973). Among other things, she hired the director of photography Jack Couffer—who later received an Academy Award nomination for his efforts—and she was responsible for the care of the film’s real-life seagulls, which she kept inside a room at a Holiday Inn for the duration of the shoot. When the relationship between author Richard Bach and director Hall Bartlett disintegrated and a lawsuit followed, Parrish was appointed as the mediator between the two men. However, her final credit was demoted from Associate Producer to “Researcher”. In 1975, Parrish appeared in the low budget B-Movie The Giant Spider Invasion which is now regarded as a cult film.

While acting provided financial stability, her main interest was in social causes including the anti-war and civil rights movements  and, as far back as the mid 1950s, the environment.

Parrish’s interests and activities in social movements and politics grew to become her main work. She was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, a member of the Jeannette Rankin Brigade, a group of notable women who fought against the war and for civil rights. In 1967, she participated in a peace march in Century City (near Beverly Hills) where she and thousands of other protestors were attacked and beaten by police and the National Guard. President Lyndon Johnson was present at the Century Plaza Hotel and helicopters were flying overhead with machine guns pointed at the marchers.

Parrish started to make speeches in the Los Angeles area, telling residents what the media did not report and speaking out against the war. Impressed with her speaking abilities, several professors from UCLA aligned with the anti-war movement asked her to organize more like-minded actors and actresses who would be willing to speak out.  Two weeks later Parrish had created “STOP!” (Speakers and Talent Organized for Peace), an organization of two dozen members ready to engage the public.  Shortly thereafter, the organization grew to 125 speakers, and many more subsequently.

On August 6, 1967, Parrish helped organize a protest march of 17,000 people on the “Miracle Mile” of Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, which received extensive media coverage and national attention. She also created a popular bumper sticker: ‘Suppose they gave a war and no one came’. Leslie Parrish and her friends distributed hundreds of them from their vehicles. Walter Cronkite reported that Bobby Kennedy had one in his plane. Someone later published the bumper sticker, changing the original wording to ‘WHAT IF they gave a war and no one came’ but to Parrish, the important thing was spreading that message.

In October 1967, a private meeting was arranged between Parrish and Bobby Kennedy by mutual friend and well-known Kennedy photographer, Stanley Tretick.  She begged Kennedy to run for president, telling him that huge, influential organizations opposed to the war in Vietnam were ready to support him were he to run. Kennedy refused again and again, saying he could not oppose Lyndon Johnson, a sitting president.v On November 30, Eugene McCarthy, a little-known senator, declared he would run against the war and challenge Johnson. Parrish was elected chair of his speaker’s bureau and utilized STOP! to develop support for McCarthy.^[26] On March 12, 1968, McCarthy almost defeated Johnson in the New Hampshire primary winning 42% of the vote. On March 16 (four days later) Bobby Kennedy announced that he would run for president. Two weeks later, on March 31, Johnson declared that he would not run for re-election. Parrish remained loyal to McCarthy and was elected a delegate to represent him in August at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

On April 4, 1968, Parrish and Leonard Nimoy (who was a STOP! member and supporter of Eugene McCarthy) flew to San Francisco to open McCarthy’s new headquarters there. After they left, they learned of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Nimoy and Parrish cried during the speeches they gave that evening.

Hubert Humphrey was nominated by the convention but lost the election to Richard Nixon. While still in Chicago, the peace movement began working toward the 1972 election, hoping to elect George McGovern. McGovern did win primaries and Parrish served as a delegate at the 1972 Democratic Convention in Miami, Florida. But McGovern lost to Richard Nixon.

During this era of political activism, Parrish worked in numerous political campaigns (presidential, gubernatorial, senatorial, congressional, mayoral) and with many different organizations, producing public events and fund-raisers for them. Her last major production was the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE) held November 16, 1969 at San Francisco’s Polo Grounds.

. She supported and campaigned for a former police lieutenant named Tom Bradley who was then the city’s first black city councilman. Despite high polling numbers prior to the election, Bradley lost to Yorty, giving rise to what was later known as “The Bradley Effect.”^[35] Next day, he decided to run again, and over the next four years Parrish worked with him closely to help secure his victory in the next mayoral election. In 1973, Tom Bradley became Los Angeles’s first black mayor. Parrish was one of forty activist citizens who served on Bradley’s Blue Ribbon Commission to choose new Los Angeles Commissioners.Over the next 20 years, Tom Bradley brought massive development to the city and was reelected five times, setting a record for length of tenure. Parrish and Tom Bradley remained friends for many years.

Parrish’s concern for the environment dates back to the 1950s when Los Angeles’ severe smog, and the reason for it, worried her. In 1979, she and her then-husband, Richard Bach, built an experimental home in southwest Oregon using 100% solar power with no cooling or heating systems, in order to prove it could be done.

In 1999, Parrish created a 240-acre wildlife sanctuary on Orcas Island (in the San Juan Islands, Washington State) to save it from normal development techniques which include logging. She named it the “Spring Hill Wildlife Sanctuary”. For seventeen years, she carefully developed the ridge-top property by creating nearly a dozen small, hidden home sites on 25% of the land while preserving the remainder in perpetuity within the San Juan Preservation Trust. While the property is now fully developed there are no breaks in the heavily forested ridge line. The developed land is invisible from the island community and the forest is intact.

Parrish married songwriter Ric Marlow in 1955; the couple divorced in 1961.  In 1981, she married Richard Bach,vthe author of the 1970 book Jonathan Livingston Seagull, whom she met during the making of the 1973 movie of the same name. She was a major element in two of his subsequent books—The Bridge Across Forever (1984) and One (1988)—which primarily focused on their relationship and Bach’s concept of soulmates.They divorced in 1999

“Independent” obituary by Tom Vallance from 1995:

The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.

TCM Overview:

Diminutive, wiry character player memorable for his numerous roles as cowardly villians and neurotics. Originally from vaudeville and the Broadway stage, Cook, who briefly entered films in 1929 before returning to the stage, made a strong impression with his definitive sniveling gunsel in “The Maltese Falcon” (1941), and followed with similar roles as weaklings or sadistic loser-hoods: Harry Jones in “The Big Sleep” (1946) and George Peatty in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Killing” (1956) over a more than sixty-year care

“Independent” obituary from 1995:

In 1975, the TV Times described Virginia Christine as “one of the small but select band of character actresses who are indispensable to any casting director”. At the time Christine had appeared in more than 50 films, hundreds of television shows, and was currently starring in one of the longest-running commercials in television history.
Swedish on her mother’s side, Virginia Christine was born in Stanton, Iowa, a town she described as “All Swedes”. At 17 she won a national drama competition. While attending college in Los Angeles, she met the comedy character actor Fritz Feld. They were married in 1940, and two years later Feld directed her in a Los Angeles stage production of Hedda Gabler, to which he invited representatives from the major film studios.

Christine accepted a contract with Warner Bros, for whom she made Truck Busters, Edge of Darkness, Mission to Moscow and a recruitment short for the Women’s Army Corps called Women at War (all in 1943). Warners then dropped her, and she accepted a contact with Universal Pictures, starting with The Mummy’s Curse (1944), in which she played Princess Princess Ananka, an Egyptian mummy who, restored to life, joined fellow mummy Lon Chaney Jnr in terrorising a small Louisiana community. She wore a black wig over her blonde hair and a clinging white nightgown, inspiring the New York Post’s film critic to write: “You will be safe in assuming that there never has been a mummy half as well-built or a quarter as good-looking.” For the next five years, she played, in the main, cowgirls, saloon girls, vamps, convicts and gun molls in a succession of “B” movies and serials.

Christine’s career took an upturn when she was cast as the wife of a paraplegic war veteran in Marlon Brando’s first film The Men (1950). Hers wasn’t a prominent role, but the film’s producer, Stanley Kramer, liked her work, and used her as a nun in Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) and as a townswoman in High Noon (1952). When he made Not as a Stranger (1955), he gave her a two-way contract: both to coach Olivia de Havilland in her Swedish accent and to play a friend and countrywoman.

In Judgement at Nuremberg (1961), Kramer cast her as the German housekeeper of American judge Spencer Tracy, chillingly disavowing any national responsibility for the Holocaust. Her most impressive role in a Kramer film was as Katharine Hepburn’s haughty business associate in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967). On hearing that Hepburn’s daughter (Katharine Houghton) intended to marry a black doctor (Sidney Poitier), Christine reacted with undisguised horror, after which Hepburn walked her briskly down to her car and sacked her – a scene which rarely failed to draw applause.

“I only ever fought for one part,” said Christine, who campaigned vigorously for the role of Kitty Collins, the femme fatale in the first screen version of Hemingway’s The Killers (1946). She lost out to Ava Gardner, but Mark Hellinger, the film’s producer, was impressed with Christine’s test, and cast her as the sympathetic wife of policeman Sam Levene. Eighteen years later, she appeared in Don Siegel’s remake of The Killers (1964), having also acted in his Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Flaming Star (1960).

She also acted under the direction of Vincente Minnelli in The Cobweb (1955), Billy Wilder in The Spirit of St Louis (1957) and Mark Robson in The Prize (1963). She and Fritz Feld acted in two films together: Wife of Monte Cristo (1946) and Four for Texas (1963). They had been married for 53 years when Feld died in 1993.

As well as the feature film Dragnet (1954), Christine appeared in its earlier television incarnation. Her other TV series included 77 Sunset Strip, Perry Mason, The Untouchables, The Fugitive, The Abbott and Costello Show, Mr Ed, The Adventures of Superman, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, The Long Ranger, Rawhide, Wagon Train, The Virginian, Gunsmoke, Bonanza and Tales of Wells Fargo.

Virginia Christine’s most lucrative television assignment began in 1960, when Bob Palmer, the casting director who had given her the part of Princess Ananka, persuaded her to audition for a commercial. For the next 20 years she played Mrs Olson, a kindly, Swedish-accented housewife who kept solving domestic problems by recommending Folger’s Mountain-Grown Coffee to a succession of married couples. The citizens of Stanton, Iowa somewhat bizarrely celebrated the celebrity status of their native daughter by converting a local water tower into a giant, ornately decorated coffee- pot.

Dick Vosburgh

Virginia Ricketts (Virginia Christine), actress: born Stanton, Iowa 5 March 1917; married 1940 Fritz Feld (died 1993; two sons); died Los Angeles 24 July 1996.

Wikipedia entry:

Chester Morris (February 16, 1901 – September 11, 1970) was an American stage, film, television and radio actor. He had some prestigious film roles early in his career, and was nominated for an Oscar. But he is best remembered today for portraying Boston Blackie, a criminal-turned-detective, in the modestly budgeted Boston Blackie film series of the 1940s.

He was born John Chester Brooks Morris in New York City, one of four children of Broadway stage actor William Morris and stage comedian Etta Hawkins. Morris dropped out of school and began his Broadway career at 15 years old opposite Lionel Barrymore‘sThe Copperhead. He made his film debut in the silent comedy-drama film An Amateur Orphan for Thanhouser/Pathé.

After appearing in several more Broadway productions in the early 1920s, Morris joined his parents, sister and two brothers, Gordon and Adrian (who also became a film actor), on the vaudeville circuit.^[4] The family’s act consisted of a comedy sketch entitled “The Horrors of Home”. Morris toured with his family for two years before returning to Broadway with roles in The Home Towners (1926) and Yellow (1927). While appearing in the 1927 play Crime, Morris was spotted by a talent agent and was signed to a film contract.

Morris made his sound film debut as “Chick Williams” in the 1929 film Alibi, for which he was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award. He followed with roles in Woman Trap (1929), The Case of Sergeant Grischa (1930) and The Divorcee, starring Norma Shearer in 1930. Later that year, Morris was cast as one of the leads (opposite Wallace Beery and Robert Montgomery) in the M-G-M prison drama The Big House. For the next two years, he worked steadily in films for United Artists and M-G-M before being cast opposite Jean Harlow in the 1932 comedy-drama Red-Headed Woman.^[6]

By the mid-to-late 1930s, Morris’ popularity had begun to wane and he was cast as the lead actor such B-movies as Smashing the Rackets (1938) and Five Came Back (1939). In 1941, Morris’ career was revived when he was cast as criminal-turned-detective Boston Blackie. Morris appeared in a total of fourteen Boston Blackie film serials for Columbia Pictures, beginning with Meet Boston Blackie. He reprised the role of Boston Blackie for the radio series in 1944. He was replaced after one season. During World War II, Morris performed magic tricks in over 350 USO shows. He had been practicing magic since the age of 12 and was considered a top amateur magician.^[8]

While appearing in the Boston Blackie series, Morris continued to appear in roles in other films mostly for Pine-Thomas films forParamount Pictures.^[ After appearing in 1949’s Boston Blackie’s Chinese Venture, the final Boston Blackie film, Morris largely retired from films. During the 1950s, he focused mainly on television and regional theatre role. During this time, Morris also appeared in guest spots for the anthology series Cameo Theatre, Lights Out, Tales of Tomorrow, Alcoa Premiere, Suspense, Danger, Robert Montgomery Presents, The Web, Phillip Morris Playhouse, Studio One, and Kraft Television Theatre. He briefly returned to films in 1955 with a role in the prison drama Unchained, followed by a role in the 1956 science-fiction horror film The She-Creature. In 1960, he had recurring role as Detective Lieutenant Max Ritter in the CBS summer replacement series,Diagnosis: Unknown. After the series was canceled after a year, Morris appeared in the NBC television film A String of Beads. In November 1960, he returned to Broadway as “Senator Bob Munson” in the stage adaptation of the 1959 novel Advise and Consent. Morris remained with the production until it closed in May 1961. In October, he reprised his role for the touring production.

In the early to mid-1960s, Morris appeared in guest spots for the dramas Route 66, The Defenders, and Dr. Kildare. In 1965, he replaced Jack Albertson in the Broadway production of The Subject Was Roses.  He reprised his role in the play for the touring production in 1966.^[10]

Morris was married twice. He first married Suzanne Kilbourne on November 8, 1926. They had two children, John Brooks and Cynthia.^[1]Kibourne was granted an interlocutory divorce in November 1939 which was finalized on November 26, 1940.^[On November 30, 1940, Morris married socialite Lillian Kenton Barker at the home of actor Frank Morgan.^[13] They had a son, Kenton, born in 1944. The couple remained married until Morris’ death in 1970.

In mid-1968, Morris starred opposite Barbara Britton in the touring production of Where Did We Go Wrong?. After the production wrapped, he returned to his home in Manhattan where his health began to decline. Morris was later diagnosed with stomach cancer. Despite his declining health, Morris began work on what would be his last film role, as “Pop Weaver” in biographical drama The Great White Hope (1970). The film was released after his death. After filming wrapped, Morris joined the stage production of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

On September 11, 1970, Lee R. Yopp, the producer and director of Caine, was scheduled to have lunch with Morris. After Yopp could not reach Morris by phone at his motel room, he went to Morris’ room where he found the actor’s body lying on the floor. The county coroner attributed Morris’ death to an overdose of barbiturates.  His remains were cremated and scattered over a German river.

TCM Overview:

One of the preeminent stage and screen performers of his generation, award-winning actor James Earl Jones primarily functioned as a high-quality supporting player after a brief run in the 1970s as a leading man. But more famous than any onscreen role was his deep, resonant voice that first gave authority and menace to Darth Vader in “Star Wars” (1977), “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) and “Return of the Jedi” (1983) – a startling achievement due to his overcoming a debilitating childhood stutter that remained with him throughout his career. Prior to his iconic voice performance in “Star Wars,” he made a name for himself on the stage, especially in Shakespearean roles not normally associated with being played by African-Americans. Once his voice became famous, it was only a matter of time until his face became renowned as well, which happened after appearing in a range of movies, from John Sayles’ small independent “Matewan” (1987) to “Field of Dreams” (1989) to a trio of blockbusters based on the novels of Tom Clancy, “The Hunt for Red October” (1990), “Patriot Games” (1992) and “Clear and Present Danger” (1994).

Born on Jan. 17, 1931 in Arkabutla, MS, Jones was raised by his mother, Ruth, a tailor and teacher, and his grandparents, John and Maggie, both farmers, after his father, Robert Earl, left the family before his birth. When he was five, the family uprooted itself to his grandparents’ farm in rural Jackson, MI – a move he later credited to causing his debilitating childhood stutter, in which he barely spoke to anyone but his family from ages 6-14. In fact, his stutter was so bad that he left his church because he was unable to read Sunday school recitations without the other kids laughing at him. When Jones reached high school in Brethren, MI, he overcame his stutter with the help of his English teacher, Donald Crouch. Crouch read a poem Jones had written, but challenged its authenticity by claiming he plagiarized it. Shocked by the accusation, Jones was further challenged to prove he wrote it by reciting the poem by heart in front of the class. Jones did, taking his first tentative steps toward overcoming his stutter, which remained with him throughout his career.

Meanwhile, in 1949, Jones earned a scholarship and enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he initially majored in pre-med. But Jones felt the lure of the stage and made his acting debut in a university production of “Deep Are the Roots” (1949). Soon he found himself enrolled in the drama program, while also eventually becoming a second lieutenant in the school’s Reserve Officer’s Training Program. After graduating in 1953, he spent two years in the Army Rangers, then left the service to pursue acting fulltime. He landed his first paying job as the understudy to Ivan Dixon in “Wedding in Japan” (1957), then debuted on Broadway as an understudy for the roll of Perry Hall in “The Egghead” (1957). Jones was back on Broadway the following year in “Sunrise at Campobello” (1958) and began his long affiliation with the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1959, with which he honed his craft in the title roles of “Othello,” “Macbeth” and King Lear.” He appeared off-Broadway in the seminal and acclaimed production of Jean Genet’s “The Blacks” (1961), then made his feature debut as the dedicated bombardier on Major King Kong’s B-52 in Stanley Kubrick’s classic satire, “Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” (1964).

Jones had his real breakthrough with a Tony-winning turn as first black heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson in “The Great White Hope” (1968), a role he reprised for the 1970 movie of the same name, which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. In 1969, Jones filmed several short segments for the fledgling kids’ show, “Sesame Street” (PBS, 1969- ), which were used to test whether or not children would be receptive to the show. The test audience responded most favorably to Jones slowly counting from 1-10. The segments were used when the show later aired. Meanwhile, he began taking leading features roles, including “The Man” (1972), in which he was the first black president; “Claudine” (1974), playing the garbage man-love interest of a ghetto mother (Diahann Carroll); “The River Niger” (1975) opposite Cicely Tyson; and “The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings” (1976), where he portrayed a fictional character based on Hall of Fame Negro League catcher, Josh Gibson.

Though working consistently on screen, his star burned brightest on the boards where – in addition to his celebrated work in Shakespeare plays – he inaugurated a long-standing collaboration with South African playwright Athol Fugard, acting in “The Blood Knot,” “Boseman and Lena” (1974) and “‘Master Harold’…and the Boys,” among others. He also portrayed Lennie in a 1974 Broadway revival of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” then performed the controversial one-man show “Paul Robeson” on Broadway (1977), which caused an uproar with Robeson’s son, who mounted a campaign to stop the production on the grounds that the story was “grossly distorted.” Nonetheless, Jones reprised the show in London the following year. That same year, Jones – or rather his voice – became unwittingly famous when “Star Wars” was released and became not only the highest-grossing movie at the time, but also a cultural phenomenon that would stretch far into subsequent generations. Though director George Lucas hired actor David Prowse to play Dark Vader on screen due to his towering 6’8″ height, he wanted a different, more imposing voice. So he found Jones and paid him $9,000 for less than three hours of work. But because he was only a voice actor, Jones did not receive points on the gross – a luxury given to the other actors by Lucas. When “Star Wars” made tons of money, Jones missed a big payday. Lucas did, however, make up for most of it with a generous Christmas bonus.

Back to appearing on screen, Jones was Balthazar in “Jesus of Nazareth” (NBC, 1977), then starred opposite Robert Duvall as Malcolm X in “The Greatest” (1977), starring Muhammad Ali as himself in this biopic about how he overcame obstacles to become the greatest boxer of all time. Jones then had great success on television in the groundbreaking roles of Dr. Jerry Turner on “As the World Turns” (CBS, 1956- ) and Dr. Jim Frazier on “The Guiding Light” (CBS, 1951-2007), becoming one of the first African-American regulars featured on the networks’ daytime dramas. He ventured into primetime series as the titular star of “Paris” (CBS, 1979-1980), playing the erudite police captain of a special detective unit of the Los Angeles Police Department, then portrayed author Alex Haley in the acclaimed miniseries sequel “Roots: The Next Generation” (ABC, 1979). After starring in two miniseries – “The Golden Moment: An Olympic Love Story” (NBC, 1980) and “Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones” (CBS, 1980) – Jones once again provided the rich, menacing voice to Darth Vader in “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980), including immortalizing the famous line, “Luke, I am your father.”

That same year, Jones made a return to the stage, appearing in Athol Fugard’s “A Lesson From Aloes” (1980) before delivering an acclaimed performance as “Othello” (1982) on Broadway in a production where he starred opposite future wife Cecilia Hart. Following a third turn as Darth Vader for “Return of the Jedi” (1983), he appeared in two forgettable features, “City Limits” (1985) and “Soul Man” (1986), before playing a former Negro League baseball player-turned-bitter garbage man in August Wilson’s “Fences” (1987), for which Jones earned his second Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Play. Also that year, he appeared in “Matewan” (1987), John Sayles’ compelling drama depicting a violent labor dispute in 1920s rural West Virginia. Following a co-starring turn in the antiwar drama “Gardens of Stone” (1987), Jones was the picture of patriarchal kingship in “Coming to America” (1988), playing the regal father of Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy), the heir to the thrown of the fictional African country of Zamunda, who refuses to enter into an arranged marriage and instead sets off to find his true love in America. He next delivered a fine performance both comic and moving in “Field of Dreams” (1989), playing a reclusive author kidnapped by an Iowa farmer (Kevin Costner) who is building a baseball field instead of planting corn.

After playing a CIA official in “The Hunt for Red October” (1990), Jones turned to the small screen, where he delivered an Emmy-winning performance as Junius Johnson in “Heat Wave” (TNT, 1990), a compelling drama about the 1965 Watts riots. He earned a second Emmy Award that year playing a disgraced cop-turned-private investigator in “Gabriel’s Fire” (ABC, 1990-92). Though a hit with critics, the series failed to generate an audience and was soon cancelled. Jones next starred opposite Robert Duvall in the period western, “Convicts” (1991), written by Horton Foote, then played Police Inspector Nkuru in “The Ivory Hunters” (TNT, 1992). Following his portrayal of the judge in “Sommersby” (1993), two rare starring turns came his way; first as the South African preacher searching for his son in the remake of “Cry, the Beloved Country” (1995), and then as Robert Duvall’s half-brother in “A Family Thing” (1996). Though he brought his usual majesty to both roles, in each case, his acting was grander than the material itself, but at least his fans were able to savor his extended minutes before the camera. Prior to both films, Jones’ distinct baritone was put to excellent use in “The Lion King” (1994), when he voiced the powerful Mufasa, king of the pride and father of the cub, Simba.

Around the time of “The Lion King,” Jones made another stab at series television with the family drama “Under One Roof” (CBS, 1995), but once again, he saw a worthwhile project cut short. After playing Hume Cronyn’s best friend in “Horton Foote’s Alone” (Showtime, 1997), Jones voiced Mufasa for the direct-to-video sequel, “The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride” (1998), then hosted segments on the Kennedys and Somalia for “CNN Perspectives” (CNN, 1998), for whom he also intoned the words “This is CNN” for their cable network ID. Jones also starred as a retired physician whose friendship with a young white boy sparks a racial conflict in a small town in the Showtime movie “Summer’s End” (1999), a role that earned him a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in a Children’s Special. Meanwhile, he enjoyed a series of recurring roles on several series, including “Homicide: Life on the Street” (NBC, 1993-99). Meanwhile, throughout his career, Jones put his voice to good use in numerous commercials, including spots for Chrysler, Goodyear, Reuben’s dinners, coverage for the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics, and The Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages.

As his career entered its fifth decade, Jones found himself performing less in films and more on the small screen, including an appearance in the miniseries “Feast of All Saints” (CBS, 2001), based on the Anne Rice bestseller, and a guest-starring role on “Everwood” (The WB, 2002-06), for which he earned an Emmy Award nomination. In 2005, he enjoyed tremendous reviews for his high-profile turn playing crotchety Norman Thayer opposite Leslie Uggams in an all African-American interpretation of Ernest Thompson’s play “On Golden Pond” at Broadway’s Court Theater. For the third time in his career, Jones was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, though a bout with pneumonia forced him to quit the show, which caused the show itself to close prematurely. That same year, Jones revisited his most iconic role, once again voicing Darth Vader for George Lucas’ final prequel film “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith” (2005). A few years later, he joined Debbie Allen’s all-African-American production of Tennessee Williams’ classic “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (2008), which was produced on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre. In 2009, Jones received a Life Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.