Gerald Mohr
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| Gerald Mohr | |
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| Born | June 11, 1914 New York City |
| Died | November 9, 1968 Stockholm, Sweden |
| Spouse(s) | Rita Deneau (1938-1957) (divorced) Mai Dietrich (1958-1968) |
Gerald Mohr (June 11, 1914 - November 9, 1968) was a radio, film and television character actor who appeared in over 500 radio plays, 73 films and over 100 television shows.
The New York City-born actor was educated in Dwight Preparatory School in New York, where he learned to speak fluent French and German, and also learned to ride horses and play the piano. Whilst a student at Columbia University, where he was on a course to become a doctor, Mohr took ill with appendicitis and was recovering in hospital when another patient, a radio broadcaster, recognised that Mohr's pleasant deep baritone voice would be ideal for radio work. Mohr joined the radio station and became a junior reporter. In the early 1930s Orson Welles invited him to join his formative Orson Welles Mercury Theatre Company. During his time with the company, Mohr gained theatrical experience on the Broadway stage in "The Petrified Forest" and starred in "Jean Christophe". He subsequently became a radio actor, appearing in over 500 radio plays throughout the 1940s and early 1950s. Most notably, he starred as Raymond Chandler's detective, Philip Marlowe, 1948-1951, in 119 half-hour radio plays. He also was the star of The Adventures of Bill Lance[1] and frequently starred in "The Whistler".
He began appearing in films in the late 1930s, playing his first principal villain role in the 15-part cliffhanger serial "Jungle Girl" (1941), then, after 3 years' war service in the American Air Force (1942 - 1945), he returned to film work, starring as Michael Lanyard in 3 movies of "The Lone Wolf" series in 1946-47. He also appeared in, amongst others, the films Gilda (1946), Detective Story (1951), The Sniper (1952). During 1949 he was co-announcer for every episode and episode narrator of 12 of the shows of the first series of "The Lone Ranger" TV series, starring Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels, along with Fred Foy. (In later colour episodes and in syndication, the voice of the narrator of the Lone Ranger radio shows, Fred Foy was used.)
From the 1950s onwards, he appeared as guest star in over 100 television shows, including TV Westerns "Maverick", "Cheyenne", "Bronco", "Sugarfoot" and "Bonanza", as well as episodes of "Perry Mason", "77 Sunset Strip", "Hawaiian Eye", "Lost in Space" and many other series of the era, especially those being produced by Warner Brothers Studios and Dick Powell's Four Star Productions. [2]
Mohr also made guest appearances in a number of light comedy shows, including The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1951), I Love Lucy (1953), and The Smothers Brothers Show (1965). He also had a recurring role in "My Friend Irma" (1952).
During 1954-55, he starred as Christopher Storm in 39 episodes of the third series of "Foreign Intrigue - Cross Current", produced in Stockholm for American distribution. During several episodes of "Foreign Intrigue", but most noticeably in those entitled "The Confidence Game" and "The Playful Prince", he can be heard playing on the piano his own musical composition entitled "The Frontier Theme".
Mohr guest starred seven times in the 1957-1962 television series Maverick, twice playing Western outlaw Doc Holliday, which role he reprised once more in "Doc Holliday in Durango", an episode of the TV Western series "Tombstone Territory" (1958). In one of the "Maverick" episodes he portrayed Steve Corbett, a character based on Bogart's in Casablanca in an episode called "Escape to Tampico" which used the set from the original film, this time in the guise of a saloon in Mexico to which Bret Maverick (James Garner) comes to hunt Mohr's character down for an earlier murder.
Mohr excelled in playing the handsome, charming villain as, for example, in the above-mentioned "Escape to Tampico", and also in the starring movie role of Joe Sapelli in "The Blonde Bandit" (1950).
Mohr appeared in mostly B-movies throughout his career and starred in "My World Dies Screaming", aka "Terror in the Haunted House" (1958) and "A Date with Death" (1959), both of which were filmed in the experimental Psychorama format, "Guns, Girls and Gangsters" (1959), and "The Angry Red Planet" (1960).
In 1964 he made a Western in Stockholm and on location in Jugoslavia called "Wild West Story" in which, unusually, the good guys spoke Swedish and the bad guys (Mohr, inter alia) spoke in English.
He also continued to market his powerful voice, playing Reed Richards (Mister Fantastic) in the Fantastic Four cartoon series during 1967 and Green Lantern in the 1968 animated series Aquaman. Also in 1968 he played the cameo role of Tom Branca in Funny Girl before guest starring in the TV Western series "The Big Valley". He then flew out to Stockholm, Sweden, in September 1968 to produce and star in the pilot of a proposed new TV series called "Private Entrance". Shortly after the completion of filming he died of a heart attack in Stockholm at the age of 54.
[edit] References
- ^ Terrace, Vincent [1999]. Radio Programs, 1924-1984:A Catalog of Over 1800 Shows. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN 0-7864-0351-9.
- ^ "Best of the Badmen" by Boyd Magers, Bob Nareau and Bobby Copeland (2005).ISBN No. 978-0-944019-43-6. Page 230/1.
3. "TV Western Players of the Fifties: A Biographical Encyclopedia of all Cast Members in Western Series, 1950-1959". Author: Everett Aaker. Published by McFarland & Co. (1997). ISBN-10: 0786402849. ISBN-13: 978-0786402847.
4. "Encyclopedia of Early Television Crime Fighters". Author: Everett Aaker. Published by McFarland & Co. (2006). ISBN-10: 0786424761. ISBN-13: 978-0786424764.
