This article needs additional citations for verification .(September 2021) |
Robert Shayne | |
---|---|
![]() Shayne in 1930 | |
Born | Robert Shaen Dawe October 4, 1900 Yonkers, New York, U.S. |
Died | November 29, 1992 92) Woodland Hills, California, U.S. | (aged
Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills, California |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1929–1991 |
Spouses | Mary Crouch (m. 1925;div. 1933)Mary Sheffield (m. 1933;div. 1943)Elizabeth (Bette) McDonald (m. 1943) |
Children | 4 |
Robert Shayne (born Robert Shaen Dawe, October 4, 1900 – November 29, 1992) was an American actor whose career lasted for over 60 years. [1] [2] He was best known for portraying Inspector Bill Henderson in the American television series Adventures of Superman. [3]
Shayne was born in Yonkers, New York. [3] He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Grosvenor Dawe, and he had a brother, Allen Shaen Dawe. [4] His father was one of the founders of the United States Chamber of Commerce. [5]
Shayne left Boston University in his senior year so that his brother could go to college. [5] For a time, he lived in Birmingham, Alabama, writing advertising copy for a women's clothing store by day and acting in a stock theater company at night. When the store went out of business, he began acting full-time. [6]
Shayne became an actor after having worked as a reporter at the Illustrated Daily Tab in Miami, Florida. [7] His initial acting experience came with repertory companies in Alabama, [8] including the Birmingham Players. [5]
Shayne's first Broadway appearance came by 1931 in The Rap. [8] His other Broadway shows include Yellow Jack (1934), The Cat and the Canary (1935), Whiteoaks (1938), with Ethel Barrymore, and Without Love (1942), with Katharine Hepburn. [2] [9]
Shayne began his film career in 1934, appearing in two features. In 1942, he became a contract actor with Warner Bros. [10] He played many character roles in movies and television, including a film series of Warner Bros. featurettes called the "Santa Fe Trail" series such as Wagon Wheels West , [11] and as a mad scientist in the 1953 horror film The Neanderthal Man .
He appears briefly in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest , seated at a booth in a hotel bar, where his character meets Cary Grant's character, just as the latter is about to be kidnapped. [12] He also had a small but pivotal role in the 1953 sci-fi classic Invaders From Mars as a scientist. [13] Shayne enjoyed a brief rebirth in his career when he was cast as the blind newspaper vendor in The Flash television show. [14]
Shayne portrayed Police Inspector William "Bill" Henderson on the 1950s TV series Adventures of Superman. He appeared sporadically in the early episodes of the series, in part because he was accused by his second wife Mary Sheffield, [15] and came under HUAC scrutiny and was briefly blacklisted on unproven and unspecific charges of association with Communism. [16] [17] As the program evolved, especially in the color episodes, he was brought into more and more of them, to the point where he was a regular on the series. [18] [19]
Shayne married Mary Crouch in 1925. [20] They had one daughter, but divorced in 1933. [5]
In 1933, he married Mary Sheffield. They also had one daughter, and divorced in 1943. [21] [5]
In 1943, he married Elizabeth McDonald, with whom he had 2 more children. They remained married until his death in 1992.[ citation needed ]
Shayne died in 1992 of lung cancer at the Motion Picture Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. [9] He was 92 years old. Shayne was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills, California. [22]
Leon Ames was an American film and television actor. He is best remembered for playing father figures in such films as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Little Women (1949), On Moonlight Bay (1951) and By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953). His best-known dramatic role may have been in the crime film The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).
Tom Drake was an American actor. Drake made films starting in 1940 and continuing until the mid-1970s, and also made TV acting appearances.
Roy Roberts was an American character actor. Over his more than 40-year career, he appeared in more than nine hundred productions on stage and screen.
John Rummel Hamilton was an American actor who appeared in many movies and television programs, including the role as the blustery newspaper editor Perry White in the 1950s television program Adventures of Superman.
Trevor Bardette was an American film and television actor. Among many other roles in his long and prolific career, Bardette appeared in several episodes of Adventures of Superman and as Newman Haynes Clanton, or Old Man Clanton, in 21 episodes of the ABC/Desilu western series, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.
Steven Geray was a Hungarian-born American film actor who appeared in over 100 films and dozens of television programs. Geray appeared in numerous famed A-pictures, including Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) and To Catch a Thief (1955), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve (1950), and Howard Hawks' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). However, it was in film noir that be became a fixture, being cast in over a dozen pictures in the genre. Among them were The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), Gilda (1946), The Unfaithful (1947), In a Lonely Place (1950), and The House on Telegraph Hill (1951).
John Francis Regis Toomey was an American film and television actor.
John Beach Litel was an American film and television actor.
Walter Reed was an American stage, film and television actor.
Jonathan Hale was a Canadian-born film and television actor.
Reed Hadley was an American film, television and radio actor.
Stanley Martin Andrews was an American actor perhaps best known as the voice of Daddy Warbucks on the radio program Little Orphan Annie and later as "The Old Ranger", the first host of the syndicated western anthology television series, Death Valley Days.
Dan Seymour was an American character actor who frequently played villains in Warner Bros. films. He appeared in several Humphrey Bogart films, including Casablanca (1942), To Have and Have Not (1944) and Key Largo (1948).
Emory Parnell was an American vaudeville performer and actor who appeared in over 250 films in his 36-year career.
Hugh Prosser was a Hollywood actor who appeared in over 90 films between 1936 and 1953.
Clancy Cooper was an American actor.
Harlan Warde was a character actor active in television and movies.
Charles Quigley was an American actor.
Peter George Lynn was an American actor and writer.
Wilton Graff was an American actor.