Anthony George
Anthony George (January 29, 1921 – March 16, 2005) was an American actor mostly seen on television. He is best known for roles of Don Corley in Checkmate, Burke Devlin and Jeremiah Collins on Dark Shadows, and Dr. Will Vernon on One Life to Live.
He was born Ottavio Gabriel George in Endicott, New York, the second son of Italian immigrant parents. From the age of six, George dreamt of being in films. After serving in World War II, George moved to Hollywood to achieve his goal of stardom. The first few years were lean, but by 1950 he had received his first credit and the work began to accumulate. He appeared as an Indian guide in the 1956 episode "Death in the Snow" of NBC's anthology series, The Joseph Cotten Show, Cotton later returned the favor, guest starring in the episode Face in the Window of Checkmate. George guest starred in an episode of two syndicated television series, the Barbara Eden sitcom, How to Marry a Millionaire and the John Bromfield crime drama Sheriff of Cochise. He appeared in the first Brian Keith CBS series, Crusader, a 1955–1956 Cold War drama.
By 1959, he was cast as federal agent Cam Allison in the first season of The Untouchables. He left the series after the first season, when he was cast in a CBS series of his own, Checkmate.
Checkmate was George's most successful series. He was given top billing over Sebastian Cabot (1918–1977) and Doug McClure (1935–1995) for two memorable seasons. Created by Eric Ambler, the series featured top-flight writing and casting, and George's character was definitely the lead.
His longest-running success came from his decades-long career in daytime television soap-operas. In 1967, George replaced Mitchell Ryan as the brooding Burke Devlin on Dark Shadows. Some months later, the character was "killed" in a plane crash, and George created the role of Jeremiah Collins in a flashback to the year 1795. The story ran for most of 1967, until Jeremiah was killed off. George obtained further roles on Search for Tomorrow (as Dr. Tony Vincente, 1970–1975) and One Life to Live, the latter in which he replaced former film star Farley Granger as Dr. Will Vernon. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, One Life to Live was written and produced by many Dark Shadows alumni, which led to an amusing scene where former Dark Shadows stars George, Nancy Barrett and Grayson Hall, as their Llanview counterparts, wondered where they had previously met.
After being written out of One Life to Live in 1984, George continued to make sporadic film and television appearances. In 1991 he was awarded a Bronze Star on the Binghamton, New York, Sidewalk of Stars. George died in a California hospital of pulmonary disease at the age of eighty-four.
