Will Hutchins | |
---|---|
Born | Marshall Lowell Hutchason May 5, 1930 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Alma mater | Pomona College |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1941, 1956–2010 |
Spouses | Chrissie Burnett (m. 1965;div. 1969)Barbara Torres (m. 1988) |
Awards | Golden Boot Awards (2002) [1] Stone-Waterman Award (2004) – Cincinnati Old Time Radio Convention |
Will Hutchins (born Marshall Lowell Hutchason; May 5, 1930) is an American actor most noted for playing the lead role of the young lawyer Tom Brewster, in the Western television series Sugarfoot , which aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961 for 69 episodes.
Hutchins was born in the Atwater Village neighborhood of Los Angeles. As a child, he visited the location filming of Never Give a Sucker an Even Break and made his first appearance as an extra in a crowd. [2]
He attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he majored in Greek drama. He also studied at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he enrolled in cinema classes.
During the Korean War, he served for two years in the United States Army Signal Corps as a cryptographer in Paris, serving as a Corporal with SHAPE. [3] Following his enlistment he enrolled as a graduate student at UCLA in their Cinema Arts department on the G. I. Bill. [4]
Hutchins began acting and got a role on Matinee Theatre .
Hutchins was discovered by a talent scout for Warner Bros., who changed his name from Marshall Lowell Hutchason to Will Hutchins. The young actor's easygoing manner was compared to Will Rogers, the Oklahoma humorist. [5]
His contract led him to guest appearances in Warner Bros. Television programs, such as Conflict , in which he appeared in three hour-long episodes, including his screen debut as Ed Masters in "The Magic Brew" on October 16, 1956.
Hutchins was also cast as a guest star on Cheyenne , Bronco , Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip . [6]
He had small roles in the Warners movies Bombers B-52 (1957), Lafayette Escadrille (1958), and No Time for Sergeants (1958) where he screen tested for the lead of Will Stockdale with James Garner playing the psychiatrist. [7]
Hutchins leapt to national fame in the lead of Sugarfoot , in which he played a frontier lawyer with intermittent comedic overtones. During the series' run he guest-starred on other Warner Bros shows such as The Roaring 20's , Bronco , and Surfside 6 . He was the lead guest star in an episode of Maverick entitled "Bolt from the Blue" written and directed by Robert Altman and starring Roger Moore as Beau Maverick.
He appeared in supporting roles in the Warner Bros films Claudelle Inglish (1961) and the World War II action picture Merrill's Marauders (1962), which starred Jeff Chandler.
Hutchins guest-starred on Gunsmoke and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour .
While appearing in a play in Chicago in late 1963, he was flown to Los Angeles to shoot a television pilot for MGM, Bert I. Gordon's Take Me to Your Leader, in which Hutchins played a Martian salesman who came to Earth. Though the pilot was not picked up, it led MGM to sign him for Spinout , in which he co-starred as Lt. Tracy Richards ("Dick Tracy" transposed) alongside Elvis Presley.
Also in 1963, he appeared on an episode of Gunsmoke. In S8/Ep24, "Blind Man's Bluff", his character was Billy Poe.
In 1965, Hutchins co-starred with Jack Nicholson and Warren Oates in Monte Hellman's The Shooting .
In 1966, he made a guest appearance on the CBS courtroom drama series Perry Mason as Don Hobart in "The Case of the Scarlet Scandal". (He also appeared as Dan Haynes in The New Perry Mason in 1973 in the episode, "The Case of the Deadly Deeds".)[ citation needed ]
In 1966–1967, he co-starred with Sandy Baron in Hey, Landlord , set in a New York City apartment building. [8] The program followed Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color , but it failed to attract a sustaining audience against CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show and ABC's The F.B.I. with Efrem Zimbalist Jr., his former Warner Brothers colleague. [9]
Hutchins was reunited with Presley in Clambake (1967).
In 1968–1969, Hutchins starred as Dagwood Bumstead in a CBS television version of the comic strip Blondie . [8]
He travelled to Rhodesia to appear in Shangani Patrol (1970) playing Frederick Russell Burnham.
Back in the United States, Hutchins guest-starred on Love, American Style , Emergency! , Chase , Movin' On , The Streets of San Francisco , and The Quest . He was in The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973), Slumber Party '57 (1976), and The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977).
He also began appearing in circuses as Patches the Clown. [10]
Hutchins had roles in Roar (1981), Gunfighter (1999) and The Romantics (2010).
Hutchins was married to Chris Burnett, sister of Carol Burnett, with whom he had a daughter. [11]
Joseph Peter Breck was an American character actor. The rugged, dark-haired Breck played the gambler and gunfighter Doc Holliday on the ABC/Warner Bros. Television series Maverick as well as Victoria Barkley's hot-tempered middle son Nick in the 1960s ABC/Four Star Western The Big Valley. Breck also had the starring role in an earlier NBC/Four Star Western television series entitled Black Saddle.
Victor Edwin French was an American actor and director. He is remembered for roles on the television programs Gunsmoke, Little House on the Prairie, Highway to Heaven, and Carter Country.
Gordon Douglas Brickner was an American film director and actor, who directed many different genres of films over the course of a five-decade career in motion pictures.
Sammy Jackson was an American actor, known particularly for his roles reflecting rural life, and a country music disc jockey, although he also played pop-standards during 1983 at Los Angeles's KMPC. He also recorded several 45 RPM singles in country and rockabilly styles between 1959 and 1965.
Spinout is a 1966 American musical comedy film starring Elvis Presley as the lead singer of a band and part-time race car driver. The film was #57 on the year-end list of the top-grossing films of 1966. It was titled California Holiday in the UK.
Edward Byrne Breitenberger, known professionally as Edd Byrnes, was an American actor, best known for his starring role in the television series 77 Sunset Strip. He also was featured in the 1978 film Grease as television teen-dance show host Vince Fontaine, and was a charting recording artist with "Kookie, Kookie ".
Gloria Maude Talbott was an American film and television actress.
Dorothy Michelle Provine was an American singer, dancer and actress. Born in 1935 in Deadwood, South Dakota, she grew up in Seattle, Washington, and was hired in 1958 by Warner Bros., after which she first starred in The Bonnie Parker Story and played many roles in TV series. During the 1960s, Provine starred in series such as The Alaskans and The Roaring Twenties, and her major film roles included It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Good Neighbor Sam (1964), The Great Race (1965). That Darn Cat! (1965), Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die (1966), Who's Minding the Mint? (1967), and Never a Dull Moment (1968). In 1968, Provine married the film and television director Robert Day and mostly retired. She died of emphysema on April 25, 2010, in Bremerton, Washington.
Sugarfoot is an American Western television series that aired for 69 episodes on ABC from 1957-1961 on Tuesday nights on a "shared" slot basis – rotating with Cheyenne ; Cheyenne and Bronco ; and Bronco. The Warner Bros. production stars Will Hutchins as Tom Brewster, an Easterner who comes to the Oklahoma Territory to become a lawyer. Brewster was a correspondence-school student whose apparent lack of cowboy skills earned him the nickname "Sugarfoot", a designation even below that of a tenderfoot.
Richard Charles Potter Coogan was an American actor best known for his portrayal of Captain Video in Captain Video and His Video Rangers from 1949 to 1950.
Robert Louis Colbert is an American actor best known for his leading role as Dr. Doug Phillips on the ABC television series The Time Tunnel and his two appearances as Brent Maverick, a third Maverick brother in the ABC/Warner Brothers western Maverick.
Charles Darwin Cooper was an American actor who played a wide variety of television and film roles from 1950 to 2001. On Broadway, Cooper appeared in The Winner (1954) and All You Need Is One Good Break (1950).
Charles Randolph "Chubby" Johnson was an American film and television supporting character actor with a genial demeanor and warm, country-accented voice.
Mike Road was an American voice actor and Warner Bros. television series contract player whose television career dates back to the 1950s and in films to the 1940s.
Rhodes Reason was an American actor who appeared in more than 200 roles in television, film, and stage.
Diane Jean McBain was an American actress who, as a Warner Brothers contract player, reached a brief peak of popularity during the early 1960s. She was best known for playing an adventurous socialite in the 1960–1962 television series Surfside 6 and as one of Elvis Presley's leading ladies in 1966's Spinout.
Robert Gary Vinson was an American actor who appeared in significant roles in three television series of the 1960s: The Roaring 20s, McHale's Navy, and Pistols 'n' Petticoats.
Patricia Barry was an American stage, film, and television actress.
Anna-Lisa was a Norwegian-born actress who appeared primarily in American films and television series, until she returned to Norway in the early 1970s, where she became a puppeteer.
Olive Sturgess is a Canadian former actress who worked in American films, television shows, and theatre in the 1950s and 1960s. Her parents were Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Sturgess. Leonard hosted his own radio show. She came to Hollywood in 1954.