The Silver Screen Oasis

Another dank and dreary day in New York. Another Mystery Guest has come in to brighten things up.

Do you know me?

My parents were theater/movie people, and I was born in Los Angeles. However, I grew up and went to school in New York, and attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts there. I made my theater debut in a Tennessee Williams play. The following year I was drafted, but I refused to serve on moral grounds. Instead, I was required to do community service type work overseas, which I did gladly.

My next play starred a Broadway Icon, and in my first movie I co-starred with a Hollywood Icon (both female). I got an Oscar nomination for my first movie role, too.

I have done a great deal of TV, beginning with TV in its infancy, and I've made quite a few movies as well. In a real departure from my first movie role as a boyish innocent, I appeared in a dramatic movie, set in New York City, which dealt with a topic Hollywood seldom discussed in the 1950s.

However, my busy career in TV and film had another purpose: to help fund making movies with uplifting moral and spiritual messages. I produced and starred in one which was quite successful in the 1950s. Some of the others are not generally known, or never got released.

More recently, I had a recurring role in a very popular nighttime soap, but my character was killed off. Some said it was because he was just too "good" to fit in with the nest of vipers story lines. I am still active, and have a role in an upcoming movie. (And by the way - today is not my birthday.)

Who am I?

Try these clues:

Some of the roles our MG has played:

A cowboy
A stag party attendee
A famous Protestant minister
A crusading Catholic priest

Ah, Ken, I was wondering where you were.

Don Murray is correct.

His first play on Broadway was The Rose Tattoo. He was a conscientious objector during the Korean conflict, and was sent to Europe to do relief work among displaced persons. Upon his return, he co-starred in a revival of The Skin of Our Teeth, which starred Marty Martin. Spotted by Joshua Logan, Murray got a role opposite Marilyn Monroe, as the naive cowboy in Bus Stop. On the set of that film he met Hope Lange, whom he married, and he also got an Oscar nomination.

Murray has produced, directed and starred in several movies with a faith theme, including one success, The Hoodlum Priest. Another of his projects was a biography of Rev. Norman Vincent Peale.

He played the drug-addicted veteran in the film version of A Hatful of Rain. He made quite a few commercially successful films, including The Bachelor Party. He had a recurring role on one of the nighttime soaps, Knott's Landing.

According to IMBd, Murray has a role in an upcoming movie starring Val Kilmer.

[quote="jdb1"]Ah, Ken, I was wondering where you were.

I'm here thanks, enjoying the various comments & observations by the members of SSO, especially yours, about New York City & cultural/religious diversity.

Awwwww

Thank you.

And a new Mystery Guest steps up to the podium:

I was an orphan, or possibly I was abandoned as a child. I was never really sure where I came from, but I spent my early years in several European countries. I decided I'd be better off in the New World, so I became a merchant sailor and made my way to New York City.

I tried being an artist for a while, but I couldn't make much of a living at it. I also made some short films, which came to the attention of MGM. They decided my good looks would be better used on the screen, rather than behind it, so I got a contract and was pretty much typecast right from the start. When I needed a screen name, I simply reversed the order of my middle and last name.

I appeared some late silents, and a lot of sound films, going on to a successful, if minor, career in television. Unfortunately, the US government discovered at some point that I had come into the country illegally, and even with my established career at that point, I couldn't accurately state the place of my birth or the names of my parents. I was on the point of being deported to Spain (my last country of residency), when the head of a movie studio intervened and got me some time to work things out. Then, a very powerful, although never officially elected, government person, who was familiar with my art work (and probably my movie work as well), got me a residency permit. This person had the ear of an even more powerful government figure, who had the power to grant me a pardon and the equivalent of a green card.

I have about 100 screen appearances to my credit. I was a stalwart of early TV, starring in a very popular series which was technically different from just about every other TV series of its time.

I received a serious injury during the filming of my series, and was required to record my lines for dubbing, and do my close-up scenes from my hospital bed. Doubles were used for the long shots. This went on for about 9 episodes, and no one was the wiser. A catchphrase from my series became very popular, and is still heard today, although the source is very likely forgotten.

Who am I?

Hey, Judith, wait for me.

Duncan Renaldo, who I met as a wee lad (me, not Sr. Renaldo) at the County Fair. As a promo for his appearance, there was an essay contest, "Why I Want to Meet the Cisco Kid." The winner actually got to hang-out with him (supposedly), but I just got to shake his hand (along with dozens of other snotty brats).

Um -- I believe "wait for me" is from Wild Bill Hickcock. What I had in mind was "Oh, Cisco! Oh, Pancho!" (sounds like a heavy petting session, doesn't it?)

You are correct. Renault Renaldo Duncan had no known antecedents, and it caused him a lot of trouble down the road.

It was Herbert Yates of Republic Pictures who got him a reprieve from the Immigration police, and it was none other than Eleanor Roosevelt who did her thing, nagging her husband to grant Renaldo a pardon and let him stay in the country. It's nice to have friends, no?

Oh, by the way, The Cisco Kid was shot in color from its very inception, something rare in 1950s TV.

Nevertheless, I am very impressed that you got to shake hands with the Kid. (However, I still think selling Edw. G. Robinson an apple trumps that.) Maybe sometime we can exchange celebrity encounters of a more personal nature, eh?

Didn't Andy Devine play Pancho? Gracious, how embarassing.

Maybe sometime we can exchange celebrity encounters of a more personal nature, eh? -- Are you almost bragging about something that we'd all like to know, hmmmm?

Leo Carrillo played Pancho. Andy Devine played Jingles to Guy Madison's Wild Bill Hickok (if memory serves me correctly.)

Charlie, I think your memory is doing its duty in this instance.

And ChiO - as Calvin Coolidge once said regarding discretion: "I have never been hurt by anything I didn't say."

(Sounds more like Yogi Berra, doesn't it?)

Happy July, everyone. It's a rare really nice summer day in NYC - warm but not hot, relatively dry, breezy. The forecast for the long weekend (and I have tomorrow off!!!) is not hopeful, but time off is time off and we musn't grumble.

Here is a new Mystery Guest.

After graduating from law school in the midwest, I decided I'd rather be a journalist, so I got a job on a Chicago newspaper, and then snagged one on The New York Times. My position in New York allowed me to meet and mingle with some of the brightest and best-known literary people, and through them I started getting work in musical reviews on and off-Broadway. Many of these reviews were written by my friends. They liked my sense of humor and my dry way of speaking.


I got a Hollywood contract, and I made about 50 screen appearances, beginning in the late 1920s. I was well known for my ability to ad lib, and script writers left gaps in my scripts for me to fill in with quips.

In fact, a clever quip that was oft-heard in the 1930s and 40s, and that was credited to a very popular humorist/writer/actor was actually, according to this man (who was a close friend), coined by me when I fell into a swimming pool. This actor spoke this line himself in a movie, and it is commonly associated with him.

However, after a while I got tired of it - I wanted to play fully-written characters. By the 1940s, I wasn't working much in film, and what work I did get was at the minor studios. I did, however, make several pretty good films for Hal Roach.

In the mid-1940s I was in a serious car crash, which I did not survive. Some say I deliberately crashed my car because I was so despondent over the recent death of my close friend, the one mentioned above.

Who am I?

Robert Benchley?

knitwit45 wrote:Robert Benchley?

Ooooohh - you are so close! But no, it's not Benchley. Our MG is not as generally well-remembered as is Benchley, although he was quite popular in his day. Those of us who watch Turner Classics have seen probably seen our MG from time to time.

Here's a hint which might help in research: at his death, our MG was engaged to be married to a minor supporting actress who, 20 years later, became a fairly major player by co-starring in a very popular sitcom. At the time of their engagement, she had been recently divorced from a tall, urbane actor who generally played either patrician types or cads. In one movie of the late 40s, this actress played the part of an unloving mother whose coldness contributed to the mental breakdown of a Really Big Star.