The Roy Huggins Affair

Screenwriter, novelist, and producer Roy Huggins had a significant influence in Hollywood, most notably in television. Below are three who were indirectly and directly impacted by Huggins.

IRVING BACON (1893-1965) was an American character actor who always had a role to play, no matter how small, in nearly five hundred films. He often played comical everyday men and was singled out by his trademarked surprised expression. He is perhaps best remembered as the soda jerk in the comedy, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941), or the musical, Holiday Inn (1942), as the cagey wagon driver. In later years, Bacon would also be cast in serious roles, whether in Westerns or modern-day dramas. Bacon had roles on television's Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip. Both lead characters from those shows, Bret Maverick and Stu Bailey, were created by Roy Huggins.

VICTOR JORY (1902-1982) was a Canadian-American actor of stage, film, and television. He was initially cast in romantic leads. In Shakespeare's fantasy play, A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), he portrayed Oberon and eighteenth-century costume dramas. His career would turn one-hundred-eighty degrees, becoming most identified as a sinister villain in Westerns. A case in point is Dodge City (1939), a ruthless outlaw gang member. His mid-career creased face brought him a wide variety of roles as a Native American Indian or a detective in modern crime dramas in film and television. Nearing the end of his career, Jory had a definitive role to use his trademarked tight-lipped delivery as an old-school FBI agent from the 1930s in "The Attractive Nuisance" (1977), an episode of Huggins's The Rockford Files.

ADELE MARA (1923-2010) was an American actress, singer, and dancer who appeared in mostly forgettable films. She was most prolific in the 1940s with such average films as The Tiger Woman (1945) and Exposed (1947) before turning to the new medium of television in the 1950s through the 1960s. The beauty was married to Roy Huggins from 1952 until his death in 2002. Born Adelaide Delgado, her brother, Luis Delgado, was frequently cast in The Rockford Files series. He was James Garner's long-time personal assistant, as well. By the way, that's Rod Cameron above. He guest-starred as Jack Chilson on a 1976 episode of The Rockford Files. 

The Creation of Lake Mead

On this day in 1936, Boulder Dam was fully completed. It was officially renamed Hoover Dam after President Herbert Hoover by a joint resolution of Congress in 1947. Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River on the border between Nevada and Arizona. The dam created Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States by volume when full. Construction began in 1931 during the Great Depression and was dedicated in 1935 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The heavily traveled US 93 ran along the dam's crest until October 2010, when the Hoover Dam Bypass opened (above).