Reel Character Series

 

Frank Lovejoy (1912-1962) was an American actor in radio, film, and television, best known for his supporting roles as the “everyman” caught up in challenging circumstances. He was one actor not needing to change his last name just to stand out from the Hollywood crowd. Whether in military uniform, as a detective, or common laborer, he handled a variety of roles with near-flawless performances, from tough cop to sensitive husband. Lovejoy had the voice of someone who spent the day in the stands yelling for his NFL playoff team and has not yet recovered. A smokey, nasal sound like few others, it lent intrigue to his radio characters or the narrator for his radio crime show, Night Beat. Somewhat surprisingly, the 1950s was his only full decade of work, starting out that decade with a strong leading role in the chilling, Try and Get Me! aka The Sound of Fury, as a struggling out-of-work family man spiraling into a life of crime with an arrogant instigator, Lloyd Bridges. In 1951, he had the title role and narrator for I Was a Communist for the FBI, going undercover to expose Communism. He was notable as a supporting player in The Hitch-hiker, the classic film noir of 1953. He crammed down a lot of scripts in 1955, his busiest year, with seven films and seven television appearances. Oddly or not, the nearest I can figure he had a total of fifty-five acting roles as well. Though he completed three more films in the late Fifties, he spent the balance of his career in television. Had he lived longer, he might have provided some interesting characters well into his seventies. 

Transition to Television

There were solid performances by numerous B-movie actors but they never became major film stars. The new medium of television offered a career shift and kept them busy. Some became a household face if not a name. 

PAUL RICHARDS (1924-1974) 

Richards may be best known to television viewers for his roles as a criminal or using his distinctive voice and monotone delivery as a psychologically disturbed individual. The versatile actor may be most familiar in the saddle, however. Throughout the Fifties and Sixties, he appeared on nearly every Western series in the likes of The Rifleman, Have Gun–Will Travel, Bonanza, and The Virginian. Richards performed four times on Gunsmoke. In the very first episode, he is cast as a near-sighted, unemotional gunfighter who outdraws Matt Dillon, nearly ending the series.

His transition to television seemed to be an easy one give his dynamic and realistic performances on the small screen. Between three or four stealthy film roles, he had a minor role as a prisoner in the high-profile film, Demetrius and the Gladiators. He played an unsuccessful mugger to Ralph Meeker's character in Kiss Me Deadly, then a competing oil industry driller framed by Gene Barry in, The Houston Story. Beneath the Planet of The Apes (1970) is probably the worst of the original franchise but Richards, as the skinless mutant leader, makes a creepy impression. Only his voice can be identified.

It was not all Westerns, of course. He starred as Dr. McKinley Thompson in the medical drama Breaking Point (1963) then an appearance on The Fugitive. He later appeared as a villainous lawyer in a 1968 episode of Hawaii Five-O. The early Seventies provided gigs on Burke's Law, I Spy, Mannix, Banacek, McMillan, and Wife, with three appearances on The Mod Squad.

Notes: A native of Hollywood, Richards earned a psychology degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a master's degree in drama, also from UCLA. He gained additional acting experience at the Theatre Wing in New York. For several years, Richards served as the commercial pitchman for General Motors' Pontiac Division. He was also the spokesman for Braniff Airways. In 1967 he was the narrator for a documentary on the building of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis called, Monument to the Dream. American Express hired him in the early 1970s as their commercial spokesman. Richard's single twenty-one-year marriage ended with his death in 1974.

My TV TRANSITION series has moved to Thursdays. Check out these earlier Monday posts from the previous site:

Merry Anders          Steve Brodie        Beverly Garland       
Jack Hogan         Peggie Castle       John Bromfield      
Dane Clark