William Bendix

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Birth Name: William Bendix

Born: 14 January 1906 Died: 14 December 1964

Country of origin: United States

Height: 5' 11"

Relationship Status: Married

Partner: Theresa Stefanotti

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AFI's Male Legends Nominations (252 items)
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Published 11 years, 4 months ago

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Actors (392 items)
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Published 12 years, 2 months ago

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7 votes

Hollywood Walk of Fame - B (179 items)
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Published 9 years, 9 months ago

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6 votes

Directed by Don Siegel (402 items)
list by diabolical dr voodoo

Published 12 years, 1 month ago

4 votes

Guests in The Untouchables (158 items)
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Published 15 years, 1 month ago

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William Bendix Videos

William Bendix--What's My Line

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Description: Film Bendix began his acting career at age 30, by way of the New Jersey Federal Theater Project, and made his film debut in 1942. He played in supporting roles in dozens of Hollywood films, usually as a warm-hearted Marine, gangster or detective. He started with appearances in film noir films including a performance in The Glass Key (1942), which also featured Brian Donlevy, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. He soon gained more attention after appearing in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944) as Gus, a wounded and dying American sailor. Bendix's other well-known movie roles include his portrayal of baseball player Babe Ruth in Film

Bendix began his acting career at age 30, by way of the New Jersey Federal Theater Project, and made his film debut in 1942. He played in supporting roles in dozens of Hollywood films, usually as a warm-hearted Marine, gangster or detective. He started with appearances in film noir films including a performance in The Glass Key (1942), which also featured Brian Donlevy, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. He soon gained more attention after appearing in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944) as Gus, a wounded and dying American sailor.

Bendix's other well-known movie roles include his portrayal of baseball player Babe Ruth in The Babe Ruth Story (1948) and Sir Sagramore opposite Bing Crosby in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949), in which he took part in the trio, "Busy Doing Nothing".He also played Nick the bartender in the 1948 film version of William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life starring James Cagney. Bendix had appeared in the stage version, but in the role of Officer Krupp (a role played on film by Broderick Crawford). In 1946 he was cast in The Blue Dahlia, for the second time alongside Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.

In 1949 Bendix starred in a film adaptation of his radio program The Life of Riley.

Radio and television

It was Bendix's appearance in The McGuerins of Brooklyn, playing a rugged blue-collar man, that led to his most famous role. Producer and creator Irving Brecher saw Bendix as the perfect personification of Chester A. Riley, giving a second chance to a show whose audition failed when the sponsor spurned Groucho Marx for the lead. With Bendix stumbling, bumbling, and skating almost perpetually on thin ice, stretching the patience of his otherwise loving wife and children, The Life of Riley was a radio hit from 1944 through 1951, and Bendix brought an adaptation of the film version to Lux Radio Theater. He made Riley's frequent exclamation, "What a revoltin' development this is," into a national catchphrase.

Bendix wasn't able to play the role on television at first—a contracted film commitment prevented it. The role went to Jackie Gleason and the show aired a single season beginning in October 1949. Despite winning an Emmy award, the show ended, in part because Gleason wasn't entirely acceptable as Riley when Bendix was so identified with it on radio. But Bendix was available for a new television version in 1953, and this time the show clicked. The second television version of The Life of Riley ran from 1953 to 1958—long enough for Riley to become a grandfather.

On the 1952 television program This Is Your Life, it was claimed that he was a descendant of the 19th century composer Felix Mendelssohn.

In 1958 Bendix played the lead in Rod Serling's The Time Element, a time-travel adventure about a man who travels back to 1941 Honolulu and tries to warn everyone about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor.

In 1958 Bendix appeared on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. He returned for a second appearance on October 1, 1959, the fourth season premiere of the series in which he and his friend, Tennessee Ernie Ford, perform a comedy skit about a safari.

In 1960 Bendix starred in seventeen episodes of the NBC western series Overland Trail in the role of Frederick Thomas "Fred" Kelly, the crusty superintendent of the Overland Stage Company. Doug McClure, later Trampass on NBC's The Virginian, co-starred as his young understudy, Frank "Flip" Flippen. The program was similar to another offering on ABC the following season, Stagecoach West.
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