Well-hidden Professional

 

Philip Coolidge (1908-1967) was an American film and stage actor almost exclusively as a supporting player. His first film was Boomerang (1947). In his later films, he was a small-town mayor in Inherit the Wind (1960), Dr. Cross in North by Northwest (1959), and Mr. Porter in The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming (1966). His final role, as Fingers Nelson, was in the gangster comedy, Never A Dull Moment (1968). Yet it was television that kept him most busy.

The physically lean Coolidge, whose balding, and severe angular facial profile made him look older than his years, could appear as an angry citizen, an insurance agent, a clerk, or a sly criminal. He could also play victimized roles, exacerbated by his crestfallen demeanor. As the trained professional he was, Coolidge was adept with comedic scripts as well. Some of his best were his three of six appearances on, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Perfect Murder (1956), De Mortuis (1956), and The Dusty Drawer (1959). The latter, in which Coolidge's character, Mr. Tritt, an uppity bank teller, is suspected of stealing money from the bank by Dick York, his boarding house roommate. Around this time Coolidge made two appearances on Have Gun - Will Travel, three appearances on The Gertrude Berg Show as Professor Burke, and he played Throckmorton, the shopkeeper in an episode of The Twilight Zone (1962), "A Piano in the House." He was a cast member in 1964 on The Farmer's Daughter series as Chester Cooper.