Bruce Bennett
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| Bruce Bennett | |
 in the trailer for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) |
|
| Birth name | Herman Brix |
| Born | May 19, 1906 Tacoma, Washington, USA |
| Died | February 24, 2007 (aged 100) |
| Notable roles | The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935) Sahara (1943) Mildred Pierce (1945) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) |
Bruce Bennett (May 19, 1906 - February 24, 2007 [1]) was an American actor billed in his Tarzan films under his birth name of Herman Brix.
Born Harold Herman Brix ([2]) in Tacoma, Washington, his first career was as an athlete. At University of Washington, where he majored in economics, he played in the 1926 Rose Bowl. Two years later he won the Silver medal for shot-putting in the 1928 Olympic Games, and held the indoor and outdoor records for shot-putting.[3] Eventually, he was picked by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Ashton Dearholt of Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises Inc. to star in the 1935 movie serial, The New Adventures of Tarzan, following in the footsteps of fellow Olympic stars Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe. Brix was set to take over the role years earlier in 1932 at MGM but was injured filming the 1931 football movie "Touchdown", which also prevented his entry into the 1932 Olympics; for the movie, he was replaced by Weissmuller. The Washington Post quoted Gabe Essoe's passage from his book "Tarzan of the Movies": "Brix's portrayal was the only time between the silents and the 1960s that Tarzan was accurately depicted in films. He was mannered, cultured, soft-spoken, a well-educated English lord who spoke several languages, and didn't grunt."[4] The filming was done in Guatemala, and Brix did his own stunts.
After a number of serials and B-movies, and finding himself still typecast as "Tarzan" in the minds of major producers, Brix changed his name to "Bruce Bennett" following time in service during World War II.
He appeared in many top-notch films in the 1940s and early 1950s including Sahara (1943), Mildred Pierce (1945) (as Joan Crawford's husband), Nora Prentiss (1947), Dark Passage (1947), Mystery Street (1950) and Sudden Fear (1952). He was often cast as the "dependable second leading man." One of his best roles was as the lone prosepctor name Cody who wanders into a camp headed by an insanely greedy and paranoid Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)."
The Washington Post noted, "He moved into grittier roles in the late 1940s and early 1950s, playing a detective in William Castle's "Undertow" and a forensic scientist who helps solve a crime in John Sturges's "Mystery Street." e was sympathetic as an aging baseball player in "Angels in the Outfield" (1951)" [5]
From the mid-1950s on, he mainly appeared in lesser films, such as The Alligator People (1959), and on television in guest starring roles. He was a very successful businessman during the 1960s outside of acting.
Bennett reached his 100th birthday on May 19, 2006, and died less than a year later in February 2007 of complications from a broken hip ([6]).
NB: Standard works of reference such as Halliwell's "Who's Who in the Movies" and Katz's "Encyclopedia of Film" give his date of birth as 1909 (or May 19, 1909) but the Internet Movie Database (link below) has 1906, and this date is confirmed by the 1920 and 1930 U.S. Census records.
| Olympic medal record | |||
| Men's Athletics | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Silver | 1928 Amsterdam | Shot put | |
[edit] Trivia
- A lifelong avid parasailer and skydiver, he last went skydiving, leaping out 10,000 feet over Lake Tahoe, at 96 years of age. ([7])
[edit] References
- Ephraim Katz: "Encyclopedia of Film" (ISBN 0 333 90690 X)
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Buster Crabbe |
Actors to portray Tarzan 1935, 1938 |
Succeeded by Glenn Morris |
