1. Ford Rainey was an American film, stage, and television actor.
15 Facts About Ford Rainey
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Ford Rainey first acted on the stage while a student at Centralia High School, where he graduated in 1927.
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Ford Rainey graduated from Centralia Junior College in Washington state and in 1933 from the Cornish School, now Cornish College of the Arts, in Seattle.
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Ford Rainey then moved to Connecticut to study acting at the Michael Chekhov Theatre Studio.
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Ford Rainey served in the US Coast Guard during World War II.
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Ford Rainey worked at radio stations KJR and KOMO in Seattle, Washington.
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Ford Rainey made his film debut in White Heat starring James Cagney in 1949 and became a familiar face in motion pictures, appearing in Perfect Strangers with Ginger Rogers, Two Rode Together with James Stewart and Richard Widmark, 40 Pounds of Trouble with Tony Curtis, Johnny Tiger with Robert Taylor, and The Sand Pebbles with Steve McQueen.
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Ford Rainey co-starred in the acclaimed television movie My Sweet Charlie, and appeared in other TV movies such as A Howling in the Woods and The Stranger Who Looks Like Me with Meredith Baxter and Beau Bridges.
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Ford Rainey portrayed the adoptive father of Lee Majors's Steve Austin, and the foster father of Jaime Sommers.
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Ford Rainey appeared in the 1978 episode of Little House on the Prairie, I'll Be Waving as You Drive Away, and in the 1987 miniseries Amerika.
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Ford Rainey could be seen in some commercials in the middle 1970s through the 1980s, such as REACH toothbrushes.
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Ford Rainey was a bachelor until the age of 46, when, in 1954, he married Sheila Hayden and settled in New York City, where sons Robert and James were born.
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Ford Rainey remained in Malibu with his wife while he acted and enjoyed hobbies such as beekeeping and bird breeding until his death on July 25,2005, of a stroke, at the age of 96.
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Ford Rainey's interment was in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.
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In May 2012, Ford's 54-year-old chiropractor son Robert Rainey was found murdered in his Los Angeles, California office.