William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, who typically played rough, blue-collar characters.
27 Facts About William Bendix
2.
William Bendix is best remembered for his role in Wake Island, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
3.
William Bendix portrayed the clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A Riley in both the radio and television versions of The Life of Riley, and baseball player Babe Ruth in The Babe Ruth Story.
4.
William Bendix's uncle was composer, conductor, and violinist Max Bendix.
5.
William Bendix worked as a grocer until the Great Depression.
6.
William Bendix began his acting career at age 30 in the New Jersey Federal Theatre Project.
7.
William Bendix played in supporting roles in dozens of Hollywood films, usually as a warm-hearted gangster, detective or serviceman.
8.
William Bendix began with appearances in films noir, including a supporting role in The Glass Key, which featured Brian Donlevy, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in the leads.
9.
William Bendix soon gained attention after appearing in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat as Gus, a wounded and dying American sailor.
10.
William Bendix was the top-billed lead in The Hairy Ape based upon the Eugene O'Neill play, starring Susan Hayward and Dorothy Comingore.
11.
William Bendix played Nick the bartender in the film version of William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life starring James Cagney.
12.
William Bendix had appeared in the stage version, but in the role of Officer Krupp.
13.
William Bendix was cast in The Blue Dahlia, appearing for the second time alongside Ladd and Lake.
14.
William Bendix starred in a film adaptation of his radio program The Life of Riley.
15.
William Bendix was not able to play the role on television because of a contracted film commitment.
16.
In 1953, William Bendix became available for a new television version, and this time the show was a hit.
17.
William Bendix played the lead in Rod Serling's "The Time Element", a time-travel adventure episode about a man who travels back to 1941 and unsuccessfully tries to warn everyone in Honolulu about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor; the program's success opened the doors for Serling's later series The Twilight Zone.
18.
William Bendix appeared on The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford.
19.
William Bendix returned for a second appearance on October 1,1959, the fourth-season premiere of the series, in which he and Tennessee Ernie performed a comedy skit about a safari.
20.
In NBC's Wagon Train, William Bendix played the captain of a sailing cargo ship who shanghaied Major Adams, Bill Hawks and Charlie Wooster, forcing them to work on his ship.
21.
On November 16,1959, William Bendix appeared on NBC's color broadcast of The Steve Allen Plymouth Show with Jack Kerouac.
22.
William Bendix starred in all 17 episodes of the NBC western series Overland Trail in the role of Frederick Thomas "Fred" Kelly.
23.
William Bendix guest-starred in an episode of Mister Ed which served as a back door pilot for a proposed sitcom that was not picked up.
24.
William Bendix died on December 14,1964, of complications from pneumonia.
25.
William Bendix married a childhood friend, Theresa Stefanotti, on October 22,1927.
26.
William Bendix died in Los Angeles at age 58 in 1964 as the result of a chronic stomach ailment that brought on malnutrition and ultimately lobar pneumonia.
27.
William Bendix was interred at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, Los Angeles.