20 Facts About Victor Jory

Victor Jory was a Canadian-American actor of stage, film, and television.

Victor Jory initially played romantic leads, but later was mostly cast in villainous or sinister roles, such as Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream and carpetbagger Jonas Wilkerson in Gone with the Wind.

Victor Jory recorded numerous stories for Peter Pan Records and was a guest star in dozens of television series as well as a supporting player in dozens of theatrical films, occasionally appearing as the leading man.

Victor Jory graduated from the Martha Oatman School of the Theater in Los Angeles.

Victor Jory initially played romantic leads, but later was mostly cast as the villain, probably due to his distinctive, seemingly coal-black eyes that might be perceived as 'threatening'.

Victor Jory made over 150 films and dozens of TV episodes, as well as writing two plays.

Victor Jory co-starred in seven Hopalong Cassidy films between 1941 and 1943, usually cast in the role of a villain with the exception of his role as a broad-shouldered lumberjack in the film Riders of the Timberline.

Victor Jory starred in the radio series Dangerously Yours beginning in mid-1944.

Victor Jory narrated "Bumpo the Ballerina", whose title character is an elephant.

Victor Jory played the lead role of Detective Lieutenant Howard Finucane.

In 1957, Victor Jory was cast in the role of the Southern Baptist pastor George Washington Truett of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, in the episode "Lone Star Preacher" of the syndicated religion anthology series Crossroads.

That same year, Victor Jory guest-starred as Mike Dahlback in the episode "Ride to a Fall" in the NBC modern Western series Empire, which featured Richard Egan as rancher Jim Redigo.

Victor Jory played Helen Keller's father in The Miracle Worker, for which his co-stars Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke won Academy Awards.

In 1964, along with actresses Coleen Gray and Susan Seaforth, Victor Jory testified before the United States Congress as part of "Project Prayer", arguing in favor of an amendment to the United States Constitution to restore school prayer, which the United States Supreme Court struck down in two decisions in 1962 and 1963.

Victor Jory was on the faculty of the University of Utah, teaching acting in the Department of Theater.

In 1978, near the end of his career, Victor Jory guest starred as an aging Federal Bureau of Investigation agent in James Garner's The Rockford Files episode "The Attractive Nuisance".

Victor Jory died on February 12,1982, at the age of 79, from a heart attack in Santa Monica, California.

Jon Victor Jory headed the Actors Theater of Louisville, Kentucky, for 31 years, which he helped to build into one of America's most respected regional theater companies.

Victor Jory left the job in 2000 to become professor of drama at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Victor Jory's daughter Jean Jory Anderson was a public-relations director of the theater department at Utah State University in Logan.