Eight Million Uncredited Stories in the NAKED CITY (Part 4)

So have you been diving into your new DVD set of the complete Naked City, or are you saving it for Christmas vacation?  As I suspected when I was researching last year’s article about the complicated, unhappy journey taken by the rights to producer Herbert B. Leonard’s series, the new-to-DVD episodes have been given the low-budget treatment.  But the grotty sourced-from-16-millimeter transfers still look better than any bootlegs I’d managed to get my hands on over the years, so I can’t complain.  Much.

Two years ago I used the original DVDs to illustrate a three–part look at some of the many familiar faces who decorated the edges of the Naked City – faces who were too new to warrant screen credit for their early bit roles.  At the time, I left out the half-hour first season, just because I didn’t have a good source from which to derive screen grabs.  Well, now I do.  So we can reprise that feature and look at some of the noteworthy uncredited actors from Naked City‘s one fifties-lensed season, many of them not yet mentioned anywhere in print or on the internet in connection with these early appearances.

In fact, let’s take it a step further.  Here, taken from the Herbert B. Leonard archives at UCLA, are transcripts of the first season cast credits in their entirety, including all of the uncredited actors.  Along with the handful of future celebs are dozens of forgotten names who never went on to substantial acting careers, including a cadre of bit players and stuntmen (Harold Gaetano, James Little, Frank Downing, Edd Simon) who formed a kind of invisible Naked City repertory company.  Whatever happened to all these people?

(1) “Meridian” (9/30/58)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Jerry Hopper.
Guest Stars Suzanne Storrs (Janet Halloran), Alison Marshall (Debbie Halloran), Joey Walsh (Lefty), Pat De Simone (Arturo Gutierrez), Harry Kadison (Arcaro), William Zuckert (Captain Donohue), Frank Downing (McGregor), Al Hodge (Johnson), Barbara Banks (Sylvia Simpkins), Miriam Acevedo (Mrs. Gutierrez).

(2) “Nickel Ride” (10/7/58)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Douglas Heyes.
Guest Stars Cameron Prud’homme (Captain Adam Flint), John Seven (Hood), Ralph Stantley (Hagerson), Harry Holcombe (Police Commissioner), Robert Burr (Armored Car Driver), Ray Singer (Armored Car Guard), Peter Dawson (Bronson).
Uncredited Lawrence R. Dutchyshyn (Deckhand), Don Gonzales (Assistant Engineer), Doyle Brooks (Fireman), Steve DePalma (Man on phone), Stella Robinson (Secretary).

(3) “Line of Duty” (10/14/58)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars Eugenie Leontovich (Kotina), Suzanne Storrs (Janet Halloran), Diane Ladd (Yanice), Paul Lipson (Bartender), Alison Marshall (Debbie Halloran), Andrew Gerado (Peter), Nora Ferris (Baby Sitter), William A. Forester (Bailiff).

(4) “The Sidewalk Fisherman” (10/21/58)
Teleplay by Stirling Silliphant.  From a New Yorker story by Meyer Berger.  Directed by Douglas Heyes.
Guest Stars Jay Novello (Gio Bartolo), Tarry Green (Jocko), Leonardo Cimino (Shellshock), Mark Burkan (Laddie), Gary Morgan (Paulie), Ruth Altman (Mother Superior), Joanna Heyes (Nun), Allen Nourse (Mr. Thompson).
Uncredited Chris Vallon (Plip), Anthony Tuttle (Ernie), Loney Lewis (Newsvendor), Frank Downing (Patrolman), James Little (Sergeant), Edd Simon (Patrolman), George McCoy (Husband).

The psych ward-set “The Violent Circle” featured a Cuckoo’s Nest-worthy ensemble of offbeat New York faces as the mental patients, including the great Roberts Blossom (right, with James Franciscus), who would make his credited debut on the show a few weeks later in the brilliant Christmas episode “And Merry Christmas to the Force on Patrol.”

(5) “The Violent Circle” (10/28/58)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Douglas Heyes.
Guest Stars Suzanne Storrs (Janet Halloran), House Jameson (Dr. Morgan), Earl Rowe (Hanson), Robert F. Weil (Crane), Mark Allen (Green), Donald Moffat (Brickwell), Janice Mars (Miss Kaufman), Helm Lyon (Romaine), Jeno Mate (Parker), Alison Marshall (Debbie Halloran).
Uncredited Howard Wierum (Dr. Miller), Roberts Blossom (Brissen), Natalie Priest (Woman Attendant), Roger Quinlan (Elderly Man), Laura Pritkovits (Wife), Doyle Brooks (Silent Attendant).

(6) “Stakeout” (11/4/58)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars Michael Tolan (Alan Keller), Irene Kane (Betty Keller), Horace McMahon (Chief), Matt Crowley (Commissioner O’Donnell), Jan Miner (Mrs. Rogan), Nina Reader (Janie Rogan), Donald Cohen (Ely).
Uncredited Elliot Sullivan (Ben Reilly), Doyle Brooks (Jacobs), Mike O’Dowd (Vinnie), Frank Downing (Patrolman), Sid Raymond (Shoe Clerk).

(7) “No More Rumbles” (11/11/58)
Written by Sam Ross.  Directed by William Beaudine.
Guest Stars Suzanne Storrs (Janet Halloran), David Winters (Marty Nemo), Frank Dana (Packy), Sandy Smith (Lucy), Arny Freeman (Mr. Cienzi), David Challis (Little Poncho), Julia McMillan (Model), Harry Davis (Foreman), Alison Marshall (Debbie Halloran).
Uncredited Erny Costaldo (Ramrod), Bobby Nick (Cosy), Lawrence Whitman (Pedey), Bob Towner (Photo Double for David Winters).

(8) “Belvedere Tower” (11/18/58)
Written by Robert Sylvester & John Mackenzie.  Directed by William Beaudine.
Guest Stars Paul Spencer [Paul Schirn] (Mitchell Pierce), Tom Ahearne (Bellows), Dean Almquist (Dodds), Dorothy Dollivar (Evie), Bo Enivel (Mizotti).
Uncredited Ken Kenopka (Milkman), Fred Herrick (Elevator Man), Brooks Rogers (Patrolman), Harry Bergman (Stoddard), Frank Downing (Cop).

(9) “The Bird Guard” (11/25/58)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by William Beaudine.
Guest Stars Diana Van Der Vlis (Linda Stevenson), John McQuade (Cassidy), Jock MacGregor (Andrew Stevenson), Don Supinski (Sick Arch), John Lawrence (Grubber), John Seven (Brick), Lester Mack (Mr. Freeman).
Uncredited Ray Parker (Dapper Eddie), Donald Cohen (Eli), Sy Travers (Superintendent), Natalie Priest (Cashier).

(10) “The Other Face of Goodness” (12/2/58)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  From a story by Charles Jackson.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars Arnold Merritt (Jimmy), Loretta Leversee (Nora), Gerald Gordon (Walt), David J. Stewart (Professor), John Gibson (City Editor), Frank Campanella (Cameraman).
Uncredited Marty Greene (Newsvendor), Allan Frank (1^st Man), Martin Newman (2^nd Man).

James Dukas was a big, working-class type who had a major role as one of the criminals in the heist flick The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (1958), with a young Steve McQueen, and small parts in The Hustler, Coogan’s Bluff, God Told Me To, and The Amityville Horror.  He appeared briefly as a rooftop sniper in the climax of “Ladybug, Ladybug..”

(11) “Lady Bug, Lady Bug . .” (12/9/58)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars Leon B. Stevens (Eddie Stober), Peter Votrian (Bobby Stober), Daniel Ocko (Julio Marsatti), Arthur Wenzel (Butler), Peter Falk (Extortionist).
Uncredited James Dukas (Rifleman), Doug Reid (Plainclothesman).

(12) “Susquehanna 4-7598” (12/16/58)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by William Beaudine.
Guest Stars Sandy Robinson (Carol Thomas), William Clemens (Johnny), Paul Valentine (Larry), Frank Campanella (Mr. Viola).

(13) “And Merry Christmas to the Force on Patrol” (12/23/58)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars Frank Sutton (Marco), Suzanne Storrs (Janet Halloran), Michael Strong (Det. Hal Perleman), Rudy Bond (Lt. Daniels), Richard Kronold (Det. Dutton), Roberts Blossom (Quint), Mary Boylan (Marie), James Little (Sgt. Daniels).
Uncredited Martin Newman (Butcher), Tom Nello (Slug Passer), Wyrley Birch (Burr), Harry Davis (1^st Liquor Store Owner), Al Leberfeld (2^nd Liquor Store Owner), Grant Code (Reynolds), Tom Ahearne (Van Driver), Helen Waters (Italian Wife), Leslie Woolf (Italian Husband).

(14) “The Explosive Heart” (12/30/58)
Written by Jesse Lasky, Jr.  Directed by William Beaudine.
Guest Stars Barbara Lord (Laurie White Garcia), Noel Leslie (Commodore White), Cliff Carnell (Billy Garcia), Grant Gordon (Dr. Randy Colt), Maggie O’Byrne (May).
Uncredited Eva Gerson (Woman in hall), Scott Moore (Porter), Opal Baker (Nurse on boat), Natalie Priest (Nurse in hospital), Mitchell Lear (Tim Gariss), Loney Lewis (Vendor), Richard Kronold (Dutton), Helen Waters (Woman Vendor).

Ronnie Haran (left, with Harry Bellaver) was part of the sixties rock scene in Los Angeles after a brief career as a TV ingénue, with leads in episodes of Ben Casey and The Fugitive.  Before all that, she had a tiny role as a teenager in trouble in “The Manhole.”

(15) “The Manhole” (1/6/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by John Brahm.
Guest Stars Will Kuluva (Papa Strokirch), George Maharis (“Stroke” Strokirch), John Karlen (Chunk), Victor Werber (Leo), James Little (Higgins), Richard Kronold (Dutton), Dirk Kooiman (Skeet), Don Gonzales (Tico), Ronald Maccone (Rider), Raymond A. Singer (Lansing).
Uncredited Lilian Field (Nurse), Ronnie Haran (Ethel), Roger Quinlan (Diamond Merchant), Jim Kenny (2^nd Clerk), Anthony Garrett (Walk-on).

(16) “Even Crows Sing Good” (1/13/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by John Brahm.
Guest Stars Lee Philips (Larry Hine), Diana Douglas (Hilda Wallace), Bernard Fein (Dasher), Robert Weil (Happy), Frieda Altman (Mrs. Hine), James Little (Sgt. Higgins), Joanne Courtney (Nurse), Allan Frank (Citizen), Jean Martin (Young Woman).

Among the witnesses to an inexplicable mass murder committed by oddball Woodrow Parfrey in “Burst of Passion” was Maria Gambarelli (right), a once-renowned Metropolitan Opera ballerina who did small acting parts in commercials (plus a few Italian films, including Antonioni’s Le Amiche) later in her career.  Also visible in the background here, as the druggist, is Albert Linville, a stage actor who originated the role of Vernon in the Broadway and film versions of Damn Yankees!

(17) “Burst of Passion” (1/20/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars Woodrow Parfrey (Andrew Eisert), Suzanne Storrs (Janet Halloran), Guy Spaul (Reverend Thomason), Dorothy Peterson (Mrs. Crother), Kirk Alyn (Sgt. Muller), Matt Crowley (Commissioner O’Donnell), Richard Kronold (Dutton), John C. Becher (First Man).
Uncredited Shawn Donahue (Debbie Halloran), Ben Yaffee (Mr. Bell), Nina Hansen (Mrs. Harris), Rudd Lowry (Dr. Evans), Bob Smith (Mr. Hansen), Maria Gambarelli (1^st Woman), Marin Riley (Weeping Woman), Jesse Jacobs (Milkman), Robert Dryden (Man in TV door), Albert Linville (Druggist).

(18) “Goodbye, My Lady Love” (1/27/59)
[Original title: “And Through Fields of Clover.”]
Teleplay by Stirling Silliphant.  Based on a story by Edmund G. Love & Robert Esson.  Directed by John Brahm.
Guest Stars James Barton (Matty), William Edmonson (Chain), Louis Guss (Skull), Guy Raymond (Augie), Pat Malone (Harrison), William Baron (Wiper), Gilbert Mack (Mr. Lombardi), Edd Simon (Recorder).
Uncredited Ed Bruce (Citizen Agent), Ray Parker (D.A.’s Man), Ed Dorsey (Bartender).

Briefly visible in “The Shield” was Michael Conrad (top) as a firing range instructor, already telling the other cops to be careful out there.  Also in small parts in this episode were Lou Antonio (center, right) as one of wannabe cop Vic Morrow’s pals, and Peyton Place‘s Henry Beckman (above, with John McIntyre and Jack Klugman) as a priest.

(19) “The Shield” (2/3/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by John Brahm.
Guest Stars Jack Klugman (Officer Greco), Gino Ardito (The Sneaker), Marguerite Lenert (Mrs. Greco), Sheldon Koretz (Husband), Lester Mack (Civil Service Examiner), Walter Kinsella (Markham), Vincent Van Lynn (Ted), Vic Morrow (David Greco).
Uncredited Michael Conrad (Firing Range Instructor), Carl Low (Medical Examiner), Frank Downing (Patrolman), Paul Alberts (Pawnbroker), Edd Simon (Recorder), Lou Antonio (Young Man), Grant Code (Police Doctor), Henry Beckman (Priest).

(20) “One to Get Lost” (2/10/59)
Written by Sam Ross.  Directed by John Brahm.
Guest Stars Kent Smith (George Blake), Lawrence Tierney (Mike Jensen), Jeanette Nolan (Kate Blake), Norma Crane (Fay), Charles Gaines (Coroner), William Daprato (Janitor), Richard Barrows (Union Representative), Florence Anglim (Blake’s Secretary), Teri Scott (Union Secretary). 
Uncredited Austin Hay (Photographer), Pete Gumeny (Organizer), Tom Geraghty (Starter), Margie King (Woman Passenger), Chris Barbery (Newsboy).

(21) “Hey, Teach!” (2/17/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars Robert Morris (Fred “Flip” Weller), Suzanne Storrs (Janet Halloran), Jose Alcarez (Luis), Jean Muir (Mrs. Klinn), Bernard Kates (Mr. Madison), Anthony Franke (Mark).

Whoever typed up the end credits for “Ticker Tape” must not have seen the episode beforehand, since he or she omitted the episode’s guest lead while finding room for several bit players.  The actor who starred as the Olympic star feted in the titular parade (top, with Beverly Bentley, soon to be Mrs. Norman Mailer) can be revealed after fifty years as Ed Fury, a bodybuilder about to embark on a brief career as a star of Italian sword-and-sandal movies.  Also uncredited in the episode are Clement Fowler, in the first of many Naked City appearances, as a police operator and Buck Kartalian (bottom, right) as a sanitation worker.

(22) “Ticker Tape” (2/24/59)
Teleplay by Stirling Silliphant.  From a story by Cal Berkeley.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars Ernest Sarracino (Anton Marshak), Beverly Bentley (Arline), Paul Alberts (Kettleman), George Lambert (Hanson), Adrienne Moore (Mother), Tana Manners (Child).
Uncredited Clement Fowler (Rizzo), Charles Stewart (Petersen), Bob Alvin (Captain Gold), Harold Gaetano (Patrolman #1), Ed Fury (Mason Conway), Kelly McCormick (Sergeant on Horse), Mike Keene (Commissioner), Buck Kartalian (Sanitation Department Foreman), Mitchell Lear (Sgt. Faber), Frank Downing (Patrolman #2), Bob Oran (Jackson).

(23) “Fire Island” (3/3/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Norman Tokar.
Guest Stars Henry Hull (Alky), George Maharis (Lundy), Michael Conrad (Hartog), Guy Raymond (Boz), Will Hussung (Lab Man), Philip Huston (Lee).

(24) “Ten Cent Dreams” (3/10/59)
Written by Sam Ross.  Directed by John Brahm.
Guest Stars Ross Martin (Carlo Ramirez), Kay Chaqué (Maria Ramirez), Richard X. Slattery (Solid), Al Lewis (Harry Pike), Thelma Pelish (Mrs. Pike).
Uncredited Henry Casso (Runner), Eleanor Eaton (Blowsy Woman), William Conn (Controller), Howard Mann (Comptometer), Alberto Monte (Juan), Mario DeLara (Max), Stanley Simmonds (Guard), Bob Allen (Executive), Arthur Hammer (Teller).

(25) “The Bumper” (3/17/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by John Brahm.
Guest Stars Suzanne Storrs (Janet Halloran), Matt Crowley (Police Commissioner), Clement D. Fowler (The Bumper), Doyle Brooks (Garage Man), Sam Gray (Thomas Doyle), Al Henderson (Landers), Michael Strong (Det. Nate Perlman), Richard Kronold (Det. Dutton).

(26) “A Running of Bulls” (3/24/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars Michael Ansara (Rafael Valente), Michel Ray (Felipe), Felice Orlandi (Luis), Gloria Marlow (Castana).

(27) “Fallen Star” (3/31/59)
Written by Sam Ross.  Directed by John Brahm.
Guest Stars Robert Alda (Jess Burton), Arnold Merritt (Larry Peters), Rocky Graziano (Lou Curtis), Al Morgenstern (Al McBride), Guy Sorel (Harry Weeks), Bruno Damon (Manager).

Barbara Wilkin (left), star of The Flesh Eaters (1964), pops up for a few seconds as a runway model in “Beyond Truth.”

(28) “Beyond Truth” (4/7/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by John Brahm.
Guest Stars Martin Balsam (Arnold Fleischman), Suzanne Storrs (Janet Halloran), Shawn Donahue (Debbie Halloran), Phyllis Hill (Betty Fleischman), Gerald Price (Max Buchwald), Sloan Simpson (Shirley Buchwald), Romo Vincent (Teddy Simpson), Pat Tobin (Commentator).
Uncredited Sam Hanna (Handcuffed Man), Barbara Wilkin (Model), Patsie de Souza (Nervous Woman), Joseph Boley (Nervous Man).

(29) “Baker’s Dozen” (4/14/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by George Sherman.
Guest Stars Joseph Ruskin (“Count” Baker), Richard Jaeckel (Lance), Vincent Gardenia (Crudelli), Carlos Montalban (Frank Baker), Alex Dayna (Stubleman), Al Ward (Clerk), Edd Simon [Ed Siani] (Recorder), Herb Oscar Anderson (Disc Jockey Voice).

(30) “The Rebirth” (4/21/59)
Teleplay by Stirling Silliphant.  Story by Sam Ross.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars Betty Sinclair (Ruth Barnaby), Maureen Delany (Scrubwoman #1), John Becher (Bank Teller), Anna Appel (Mrs. Levinsky), Rebecca Darke (Woman with baby), Ludwig Donath (Pawnshop Owner), Crahan Denton (Superindentent).

After a large role in “And a Merry Christmas to the Force on Patrol,” Frank “Sergeant Carter” Sutton (top, with a female extra) returned for an unbilled cameo as a drug dealer in “Four Sweet Corners,” a sort-of back-door pilot for Route 66.  His stooge, misidentified by the Internet Movie Database as the similar-looking Jan Merlin, was played by Rayford Barnes (above, right), seen here with Robert Morris, whose early death may have prevented him from taking the Martin Milner role in Route 66.

(31) “Four Sweet Corners” (4/28/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars George Maharis (Johnny Gary), Robert Morris (Link Ridgeway), Irene Dailey (Amy Gary), Rochelle Oliver (Cora Gary), Mary Perry (Mrs. Gamby), Martha Greenhouse (Evelyn Roth), Patrick J. Kelly (Thin Man).
Uncredited Frank Sutton (Aces), Rayford Barnes (Tough).

(32) “The Sandman” (5/5/59)
Written by Louis Salaman.  Directed by John Brahm.
Guest Stars Mike Kellin (Ketch), Will Kuluva (Farmer), Fred Irving Lewis (Mr. Moretti), Vincent Van Lynn (Robbins), Gordon G. Peters (Technician).

(33) “Turn of Events” (5/12/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by John Brahm.
Guest Stars Jan Miner (Elsie Knolf), Melville Ruick (John Harding), Eugenia Rawls (Mrs. Harding), Kay Doubleday (Laura Harding), Irene Cowan (Mrs. Miles).

(34) “A Little Piece of the Action” (5/19/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars James Barton (Bo Giles), Johnny Seven (Al), Simon Oakland (Duke), Jan Norris (Doris Giles), Ben Yaffee (Mr. Watkins), Jonathan Gilmore (Jimmy).

(35) “The Bloodhounds” (5/26/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars Phyllis Hill (Jane Whitmore), Byron Sanders (Charles Whitmore), Rudy Bond (Lt. Springer), Janice Manzo (Lynn Whitmore), Richard Kronold (Det. Dutton), James Little (Sgt. Higgins), Louis Nye (Drunk).

What was it about shooting range officers?  In “The Scorpion Sting,” it’s the wonderful Clifton James (right, with Nehemiah Persoff) who did a small turn in that function.

(36) “The Scorpion Sting” (6/2/59)
Teleplay by Stirling Silliphant.  Based on a story by Alfred Bester.  Directed by John Brahm.
Guest Stars Nehemiah Persoff (Barney Peters), Tamara Daykarhanova (Mrs. Petraloff), Diana Douglas (Meg Peters), William Meigs (Matty Dixon), Marvin Kline (Charley Schwartz).
Uncredited Clifton James (Shooting Range Officer).

(37) “Saw My Baby There” (6/9/59)
Written by L. I. [Louis] Salaman.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars Harold J. Stone (Simon Becker), Mark Rydell (Ralph Harris), Rochelle Oliver (Katie Harris), Arny Freeman (Klutz), Robert Dryden (Morgue Attendant), Angelo Pirozzi (Harry).

Remade as the hour-long episode “Five Cranks For Winter … Ten Cranks For Spring,” “The Canvas Bullet” featured Harry Guardino and Diane Ladd as a punchy boxer and his wife (played by Robert Duvall and Shirley Knight in the remake).  Also present were William Edmonson (top, left, with the ubiquitous Clement Fowler), an African-American actor who played in Oscar Micheaux’s films and made an impression in two Twilight Zones, as a cut man; the blacklisted character actor Gilbert Green (center, right) as manager to boxer Rocky Graziano; and Al “Grandpa Munster” Lewis (above, center) as a bookie.  And yes, that’s Vincent Gardenia on the right in the last image.  Could this be the only time those two sharp-featured comedic actors shared a frame?

(38) “The Canvas Bullet” (6/16/59)
Teleplay by Stirling Silliphant.  From a story by Ed Lacy.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Stars Harry Guardino (Johnny Mills), Diane Ladd (Kathie Mills), Clement Fowler (Gus Slack), House Jameson (Doc Nearing), Vincent Gardenia (Musso), Rocky Graziano (Eddie Gibbs). 
Uncredited Al Lewis (Bookie), William Edmonson (Cut Man), Gilbert Green (Gibbs’ Manager), James Little (Sgt. Higgins).

(39) “A Wood of Thorns” (6/23/59)
Written by Stirling Silliphant.  Directed by Stuart Rosenberg.
Guest Star Cara Williams (Lois Heller).

Who Are Those Guys #10

I promised I’d be back with more Ben Casey coverage after a few detours.  First up, then, is your Ben Casey edition of Who Are Those Guys, highlighting some uncredited bit players I noticed in the episodes I revisited for my A.V. Club piece on the show and this thing about Vince Edwards.

“A Bird in the Solitude Singing” (September 21, 1964), the amazing episode with Anne Francis as the disfigured hooker, covers most of the cast in its credits.  But here’s one familiar-looking fellow who puts in a brief appearance, sans credit, as a barfly who gives Dr. Casey the evil eye after Casey cockblocks his move on the lovely Anne.

Next we have “Three L’il Lambs” (March 29, 1965), the possibly-a-backdoor-pilot-but-I’m-not-completely-sure-about-that episode where Casey shepherds a trio of green interns.  There’s a long nightclub scene where the three lads squire their dates: Norman Alden gets Kathy Kersh (lucky guy), William Arvin (whatever happened to him?) lands Marlo Thomas (er…), and somehow Nick Adams (on the left below) ends up with only a bit actress who has one line.

I didn’t have room to wedge “Journeys End in Lovers Meeting” (April 19, 1965) into the A.V. Club article, but this episode by one of the show’s few female writers, Pat Fielder, is a wonderfully operatic tearjerker with Red Buttons as a nice teacher whose young wife (Antoinette Bower) suffers horribly from a fatal brain tumor.  Here are a couple of students in Buttons’s class.  They even get names: the smirky guy is “Buddy” and the girl with the massive beehive (hornet’s nest? wedding cake? roll of fencewire borrowed from the western on the next soundstage? I could do this all day) is “Karen.”  But no love for either in the end credits, alas.  Karen in particular looks maddeningly familiar.

Finally, here’s a shot from Vince-as-director’s biggest turkey, “Run For Your Lives, Dr. Galanos Practices Here” (October 4, 1965). (Great title, at least.)  This guy in the center is a patient who, like so many of us, is not happy about missing his favorite program because the hospital’s TV room has been taken over by Latin American revolutionaries.  The other two old guys on either side of him are extras who do not have lines, although I’m fairly certain that the gent on the left is Charles P. Thompson of The Andy Griffith Show fame.

All right, you know the drill.  Tell me who these people are, please.

Who Are Those Guys #7

Wagon Train continues to serve as my go-to comfort food whenever I have the sniffles and don’t feel up to watching something that might be, y’know, good.  Over the holidays, I plowed through a middle chunk of the third season, which yielded such mild discoveries / pleasures as a twenty-five year old Louise Fletcher (as Estella in “The Tom Tuckett Story,” a credited adaptation of Great Expectations!) and Elisha Cook, Jr., as a dangerous trail weasel named Cadge Waldo (in “The Tracy Sadler Story”).  If you’re going to name a character “Cadge Waldo,” you pretty much have to get Elisha Cook to play him.  Leonard Nimoy as a drunken Indian and Susan Oliver, loudly proclaiming that her name is Margaret Hamilton (which is hilarious if you know your character actresses), as a spoiled teenager in “The Maggie Hamilton Story.”  “Look at that beautiful rabbit!” Susan exclaims dimly, and Flint (Robert Horton) blows it away for dinner.

Minor pleasures amid hazy naps.

The way Revue Productions did its screen credits around this time (1959-1960) was procrustean.  Most shows had one or two end credit cards for the guest stars, and if everyone fit, they got screen credit; if not, they didn’t.  A Wagon Train episode with few guest stars had room in the credits for all of them, including bit players and even stuntmen.  In an episode with a large cast, however, actors with major secondary roles might get left out.  If a top-lining guest star required extra-large type or single card billing, that would further serve to crowd out some of the supporting actors.  Nobody really cared whether the actors received credit or not – which leaves fussy historians, fifty-odd years later, waiting for each set of end titles with fingers crossed.

The 1959 Christmas episode, “The St. Nicholas Story,” sees the train’s Santa Claus arrow-speared by unfriendly Indians.  Missing children from both sides find each other on the plains and frolic together, thus brokering an uneasy truce.  And Ward Bond saves Christmas.  Somehow, it’s less nauseating than it sounds, but amidst the chaos the actress playing the Indian boy’s mother went uncredited:

“The Lita Foladaire Story” is a rare off-campus episode for trailmaster Major Adams, who solves a frontier-town murder mystery with the help of sidekicks Bill Hawks and Charlie Wooster.  Too many suspects for the end credits; left out are the sheriff (top, on the right with Ward Bond) and one “Jason Arnold,” attorney at law, who pops in briefly to deliver a bit of exposition (bottom, also on the right with Bond; shall we say that director Jerry Hopper’s sense of composition was, er, consistent):

Then in “The Christine Elliott Story,” the title character (Phyllis Thaxter) shepherds a dozen mischievous boys onto the wagon train once her father drops dead and his orphanage closes.  This one is about as nauseating as it sounds.  Oddly, while seven of the twelve child actors receive screen credit, the elderly fellow playing Thaxter’s father, “John Russell,” does not, even though he has a lengthy deathbed scene:

So can anyone ID these uncredited Wagon Trainers?  As it happens, all three of these episodes are on Youtube in their entirety.  For “The St. Nicholas Story,” see 26:50; for “The Lita Foladaire Story,” see 01:45 and 30:00; for “The Christine Elliott Story,” see 02:50.  But don’t watch Wagon Train on Youtube for pleasure; these copies are way too compressed.  Spring for the DVDs.)

P.S. Bonus screed against the IMDb et. al.: Look around the internet and you’ll see the titles of many Wagon Train episodes, most of which incorporate the names of the primary guest characters, misspelled on many data aggregation sites.  As the screen grab below makes clear, it’s Elliott with two T’s, and yet it’s spelled as “Elliot” on IMDb.com, tvguide.com, starz.com, tvrage.com, tviv.org, zap2it.com, and even most of the Youtube accounts that have posted the video illegally.  “The Vittorio Botticelli Story,” also from the third season, is often garbled as “The Vittorio Bottecelli Story.”  Yet another reason why I still transcribe the credits of most vintage TV episodes that I watch, even though the internet has made some of that work (but not every detail of it) redundant.

Who Are Those Guys #5

Last week I wrote about the first and second seasons of McCloud.  On the whole the McCloud cast credits are close to complete.  But there are a few notable exceptions: Teri Garr turns up without screen credit for a cute scene in “The Stage Is All the World,” and an unbilled John Finnegan – a favorite of John Cassavetes, and a recurring foil for Peter Falk on Columbo – can be glimpsed as a landlord in “Give My Regrets to Broadway.”

The image above comes from my favorite McCloud episode so far, “Top of the World, Ma!”  The idea of the scene is that Bo Svenson’s character is such a rube he doesn’t know about tipping, and when the bellhop asserts himself, things get sort of heated.

Clearly, the actor playing the bellhop was chosen for his size, so there would be a visual contrast between him and the hulking Svenson.  Unfortunately, the poor guy was so small that they didn’t notice him when they typed up the end credits.

Anyone recognize this fellow?  Here’s another angle.  Give the guy a name, at least, if not a tip!

Who Are Those Guys #4

Or, more accurately, Who Is That Gal?

A reader and avid fan of The Fugitive has submitted a guest post in this category.  He’s identified all of the other uncredited supporting players in the series’ pilot, including such familiar actors as Harry Townes, Dabbs Greer, Barney Phillips, Abigail Shelton, and Donald Losby.  (Whoever made up the end titles that week must’ve been in a stingy mood.)

But one actress, who appears very briefly in “Fear in a Desert City” as Losby’s baby sitter, remains elusive.  Here she is.  Anyone recognize her?

Also, it has occurred to me that this topic would work a lot better if I were to embed clips rather than simply post screen grabs.  I think some of your guesses could get closer if the actors’ voices were audible.  However, that’s going to require me to figure out a couple of new pieces of software first, so for now….

Who Are Those Guys #3

While we’re on the subject of Peyton Place, perhaps it’s time to bring back an occasional feature of this blog.  That’s right, it’s time again for “Who Are Those Guys?” in which you, the reader, help put a name to the faces of some of television’s many uncredited small-part actors.

Peyton Place presents a particularly thorny knot of unidentified bit players.  Because the show’s regular cast was so large, guest stars were almost always out of luck when it came time to make up an episode’s end titles.

Among the familiar faces who passed through Peyton Place without screen credit are Milton Selzer, Dabbs Greer, Virginia Gregg, Myron Healey, Hari Rhodes, Don Collier, Jack Dodson, Bert Remsen, Greg Morris, Virginia Vincent, Don Hanmer, John Zaremba, Byron Morrow, Curt Conway, Gilbert Green, Maxine Stuart, Peter Hobbs, Bartlett Robinson, Paul Newlan, Amzie Strickland, Irene Tedrow, Val Avery, John Lasell, George Chandler, Eleanor Audley, Bill Zuckert, James Anderson, Charles Irving, Alberta Nelson, S. John Launer, Hugh Sanders, Meg Wyllie, Naomi Stevens, Ed Peck, William Sargent, William Wintersole, Rusty Lane, Owen Bush, Paul Sorensen, Walter Mathews, Ed Prentiss, Steven Marlo, Melinda Plowman, Nichelle Nichols, and a young Richard Dreyfuss.

Some of these unfortunate actors made multiple appearances without ever breaking into the credit roll.  Jim Boles and then Star Trek’s James Doohan were semi-regulars for a while, playing successive chauffeurs to town patriarch Martin Peyton.  Russ Meyer chum Stuart Lancaster – the leering old man from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! – popped up now and then over the years as Jerry, the printer, in Elliot Carson’s newspaper office.

All of the actors mentioned above are folks I spotted while watching the show.  But there are many more that I couldn’t identify.  Let’s take a look at just two.

During episodes 52 through 55, Norman Harrington (Christopher Connelly) gets beaten up by a couple of teenaged punks in a storyline that eventually gets him a girlfriend (Patricia Morrow as Rita Jacks).  One of the two toughs is played by an uncredited Mickey Dolenz, a year before he became one of The Monkees.  Does anyone recognize the other punk (below, left, with Dolenz)?

 

During episodes 77 through 80, Betty’s high school pal Janet Sinclair enters the maternity ward of the Peyton Hospital.  The unmarried Betty (Barbara Parkins) has just found out that she’s pregnant with Rodney’s (Ryan O’Neal) child, so the point of the Janet Sinclair arc is basically to rub salt in her wounds.  Janet is played by Bonnie Beecher (unbilled, naturally, and pictured below), an ingenue who appeared on The Twilight Zone and Star Trek before leaving acting to marry Wavy Gravy.

 

However, I can’t figure out who plays Janet’s husband Bob in two brief scenes.  Here he is, between O’Neal and Parkins:

 

Submit your answers in the comments!

Eight Million Stories in the NAKED CITY … Many of Them Uncredited (Part 1)

Naked City, the cop show of the early sixties that nearly every classic TV buff adores, is famous for three things: (1) the beautifully wrought dialogue and wonderfully strange characters created by its chief writers, Stirling Silliphant and Howard Rodman; (2) the extensive location shooting, which makes the show an ever more valuable etching of Manhattan at a specific moment in time; and (3) the roster of extraordinary character actors and future stars who received, in many cases, their first exposure on Naked City, after eagle-eyed casting executive Marion Dougherty spotted them on the Off-Broadway stages that had begun to flourish in the city.

Today’s post will address only the last of those elements of Naked City, one which has always been a source of both joy and frustration for me.  Joy, because Naked City frequently offers the thrill of spotting a favorite actor in one of his very first parts.  Like Bruce Dern, for instance, who hovers around the margins of “The Fault in Our Stars,” a 1961 episode in which he plays an aspiring theater actor:

(The man standing next to Dern is Alvin Epstein, whom New York magazine recently called “one of the most important classical actors of his generation.”  Another facet of Naked City’s historical value is that Dougherty often hired theater actors and acting teachers – including Sanford Meisner and Peggy Feury – who ended up making few, if any, other substantial appearances on film.)

Dern, in “The Fault of Our Stars,” does not receive credit on screen – and therein lies the frustration I mentioned above.  Because while Naked City scripts tended to include more speaking parts than your average one-hour drama – the show’s detectives canvassed the city in most episodes, talking to a cross-section of New York types as they sought each week’s wrongdoer – the large, ornate font of the credits left room for only a few of them to be acknowledged.

That stands in stark contrast to the other important New York-based dramas of the early sixties – The Defenders, East Side/West Side, The Nurses – which rigorously credited every bit player in the crawl at the end of the show.  (This is just a guess, but I’ll bet that union rules required New York-produced shows to credit every actor with a speaking part; certainly, they had to make room for some crew members, like scenic artists and electricians, whose positions were never credited on Hollywood-based programs of that era.  Because Naked City was technically produced in Los Angeles by Screen Gems, it may have been able to evade those rules.)

Let’s take another early episode as an example of how hard it was to snag a screen credit on Naked City.  “Button in a Haystack” has ten credited guest stars, beginning with Albert Salmi (a star character actor then) and ending with Mitch Ryan (an unknown then, but a star character actor a decade later).  But “Button” also features twenty-one unbilled actors in small speaking roles.  One of them (center) is the very recognizable William Duell, who played Sefelt, one of the asylum residents in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest:

Here are the rest of the uncredited cast members of “Button in a Haystack,” and the roles they played: Paul Alberts (Luna), Griff Evans (Man with shovel), Mike Dana (Man in pit), Charles Roy Pritchard (Ballistics Expert), Herbert Ratner (Seymour), Stephen Hart (Beatnik), Vern Stough (Pretty Girl), Bernard Reed (Candy Store Owner), Pete Gumeny (Benevento), Tom Ahearne (Patrolman), Howard Morton (Ivy Leaguer), Jerome Raphel (Man with bucket), Edd Simon (Cop), Ricky Sloane (Martin), Joey Kennedy (Little Boy), Susan Melvin (Little Girl), Mac Munroe (Police Stenographer), Frank Tweddell (Mr. Jassey), Bo Enivel (Truck Driver), and Louis Guss (Counterman).

Recognize any of those names?  Neither did I, except for Susan Melvin (briefly a popular child actress, she appeared in the movie Ladybug, Ladybug and starred in an unsold pilot for Naked City’s executive producer, Herbert B. Leonard) and Louis Guss, who enjoyed a long career as a character actor, specializing in surly, swarthy Noo-Yawk types.

But many of the uncredited actors on Naked City do look quite familiar – either because they appeared in a million other TV episodes and movies in small parts, like Louis Guss, or occasionally because they went on to become major stars, like Bruce Dern.  When I watched Naked City for the first time, I recognized most of the embryonic stars (but not all of them, as I recently discovered) and some of the character actors.  But many of those unnamed faces drove me bonkers.  I knew they were somebody, but I couldn’t place the faces.  I wanted to identify them, and that information simply hadn’t been published anywhere.

Fortunately, many of the production records for Naked City survive among Herbert B. Leonard’s papers, which now reside in the Special Collections Department of UCLA’s Charles E. Young Library.  Recently I had a reason to peruse those papers, and while I was doing so I kept an eye out for the names of some of those uncredited actors that I couldn’t identify on sight.  Let’s take a look at some of them.  (For the purposes of this post, I’m excluding the earlier, half-hour incarnation of Naked City, because a) there are no DVDs from which to take frame grabs and b) its casting director, Jess Kimmel, didn’t possess the same skill in finding talented unknowns that Marion Dougherty had.)

First let’s go back to “The Fault in Our Stars,” which cast Roddy McDowall as one of several variations on Dostoyevsky’s Raskolnikov that he played around this time (“Journey Into Darkness,” for Arrest and Trial, was another one).  It turns out that the cab driver who fares poorly at the hands of McDowall’s Nietzchean fantasies was played by our old friend Chris Gampel.  I never would’ve recognized Gampel without help, since the top half of his face is cut off for the entirety of his only scene:

Later, in a beatnik joint where McDowall and friends applaud the performing poets by snapping their fingers, we catch a quick glimpse of an emcee (on stage, at left):

That’s Harvey Jason, the British-born character actor who appeared in Oklahoma Crude and The Gumball Rally, as well as dozens of TV shows in the seventies and eighties.

Later, we meet another struggling actor:

He’s played by Teno Pollick, who committed suicide in 1991.  Pollick had a very minor career as a television actor in the sixties, but he had another claim to fame – as one of Anthony Perkins’s boyfriends during the mid-sixties.

One of the earliest hour-long episodes, “Debt of Honor,” opens on a poker game, in which the dealer is played, without credit, by the familiar character actor Howard Smith:

Later, in one of the series’ most elaborate action sequences, the cops pursue a pair of gunmen who show up just long enough to engage in a fatal shoot-out with Detectives Flint (Paul Burke), Arcaro (Harry Bellaver), and Parker (Horace McMahon).  This is the about the best look you get at the faces of the two hoods:

The man on the left is Charles Dierkop, later a familiar face in movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (on which Marion Dougherty consulted, without credit) and a regular on Police Woman, as one of the Mutt-and-Jeff detectives who supported glamorous Pepper Anderson (Angie Dickinson).  After his “Debt of Honor” bit part, associate producer Sam Manners sent a memo to Dougherty, praising Dierkop for his helpfulness during the shoot and encouraging her to hire him again.  Dougherty must have seen merit in Dierkop as well, because the diminutive character actor turns up in bit parts in about a dozen Naked Citys.

And the fellow on the right in the image above?  His name is Jerry Ragni, and as far as I can tell, he is indeed the same Gerome Ragni who went on to co-write Hair.

Moving into the second season, Ernest Kinoy’s delightful, semi-comedic 1961 caper “The Hot Minerva” features Eugene Roche as a plainclothesman:

Someone at the Internet Movie Database noticed Roche’s unbilled appearance here, even though he’s squinting into the sun for all of his twenty seconds of screen time.  But Sharon Farrell’s blink-and-you-miss-it bit, as an actress who doesn’t seem to mind bumping into Detective Flint (series star Paul Burke), hasn’t been recorded on the internet until now:

Farrell soon skipped town and was playing leading roles on Hollywood TV shows less than a year later.

“A Case Study of Two Savages,” featuring Rip Torn and Tuesday Weld as a pair of hillbilly psychopaths on a bloody rampage across midtown, earned some notoriety in 1962 for its brutal and unexpected violence.  Torn has a scene where he buys a pistol from a cheerful young gun store clerk and then proceeds to wipe the smile off his face:

The clerk has several they’re-grooming-me-as-a-star close-ups and even a name – “Fred!” – so I expected him to turn up in the credits, but no dice.  If you’ve been keeping up with recent posts, you’ll recognize Fred’s real name – he is Tom Simcox, a star of Joseph Stefano’s The Haunted pilot.  Like Farrell, Simcox played his last bit part on Naked City before heading west and becoming one of TV’s minor leading men of the sixties.  (The Internet Movie Database may have scooped me on Simcox, but it also claims that Ned Glass appears in this episode as a bartender.  Wrong: the bartender is played by a less familiar character actor named Ken Konopka.)

“Today the Man Who Kills the Ants Is Coming” – perhaps the best of Howard Rodman’s wonderfully opaque episode titles – takes place mostly in the police squadroom.  Among the assembled cops there, we can catch quick glimpses of the Tony-nominated Broadway actor Rex Everhart (at right, with Milt Kamen):

. . . and the great African American actor Godfrey Cambridge (Watermelon Man), in the center of this crowd (wearing plainclothes):

Next time, we’ll continue our bit-player tour through the Naked City’s third and final season, which yields an ever more bountiful crop of uncredited young actors.

Who Are These Guys?

Okay, experts, identify these character actors for me:

That’s Gene Lyons on the right.  Who’s the guy on the left?

And another familiar-looking unbilled actor from “Man in a Chariot,” the second-season premiere of The Fugitive (which omitted a lot of bit players from its credits throughout its whole four-year run).  There are other uncredited actors in this episode, but these are the two whose names are right on the tip of my tongue.

This kind of thing drives me crazy.  Help a Fugitive fan out!

UPDATED: Paul Lukather (top) and Alan Dexter (bottom).  Thanks, everyone!