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Charles Drake (actor)

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This article is about the American actor. For the British actor, see Charlie Drake.
For other people named Charles Drake, see Charles Drake (disambiguation).
Charles Drake
Drake in Winning Your Wings (1942)
Born
Charles Ruppert

(1917-10-02)October 2, 1917
New York City, U.S.
DiedSeptember 10, 1994(1994-09-10) (aged 76)
East Lyme, Connecticut, U.S.
Alma materNichols College
OccupationActor
Years active1939–1976

Charles Drake (born Charles Ruppert;[1] October 2, 1917 – September 10, 1994) was an American actor.

Biography

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Drake was born in New York City. He graduated from Nichols College and became a salesman.[2] In 1939, he turned to acting and signed a contract with Warner Bros., but he was not immediately successful. Drake served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Drake returned to Hollywood in 1945 and was cast in Conflict which starred Humphrey Bogart. His contract with Warner Brothers eventually ended. In the 1940s, he did some freelance work, including A Night in Casablanca (1946).[3]

In 1949, he moved to Universal Studios, where he co-starred with James Stewart and Shelley Winters in Winchester '73 (1950) and again co-starred with Stewart in the film Harvey (also 1950) a screen adaptation of the Broadway play. He co-starred in the Audie Murphy biopic To Hell and Back (1955), as Murphy's close friend, "Brandon".

In 1955, Drake turned to television as one of the stock-company players on Montgomery's Summer Stock, a summer replacement for Robert Montgomery Presents,[4] and from 1957 he hosted the syndicated TV espionage weekly Schilling Playhouse (also known as Rendezvous).[5] In 1956 Drake appeared as Tom Sweeny with Murphy and Anne Bancroft in Walk the Proud Land.

In 1959, he teamed again with Audie Murphy, this time in the Western film No Name on the Bullet, with Murphy in a rare villainous role as a hired assassin and Drake playing a small-town doctor trying to stop his reign of terror.

On November 14, 1961, Drake played state line boss Allen Winter in the episode "The Accusers" of NBC's Laramie Western series. On February 6, 1963, Drake played Hollister in the Wagon Train episode "The Hollister John Garrison Story".[6] He also played Charles Maury in "The Charles Maury Story" in 1958, Season 1, episode 32.

Drake played the part of Oliver Greer in The Fugitive episode "The One That Got Away" (1967). He guest-starred in the fourth season (1968–1969) of NBC's Daniel Boone as Simon Jarvis. In 1969, Drake appeared as Milo Cantrell on the TV series The Virginian in the episode titled "A Woman of Stone." In 1970, he appeared as Randolf in "The Men From Shiloh" (the rebranded name of The Virginian) in the episode titled "Jenny." He played in eighty-three films between 1939 and 1975, including Scream, Pretty Peggy. More than fifty were dramas, but he also acted in comedies, science fiction, horror, and film noir. In an episode of the original Star Trek series ("The Deadly Years", 1967), he guested as Commodore Stocker.[7]

He died on September 10, 1994, in East Lyme, Connecticut, at the age of 76.[8]

Selected filmography

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References

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  1. ^ Room, Adrian (2014-01-10). Dictionary of Pseudonyms: 13,000 Assumed Names and Their Origins, 5th ed. McFarland. p. 153. ISBN 978-0-7864-5763-2.
  2. ^ "Charles Drake; Versatile Film and TV Actor". Los Angeles Times. September 18, 1994. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  3. ^ Weir, Robert E. (2022-08-12). The Marx Brothers and America: Where Film, Comedy and History Collide. McFarland. p. 198. ISBN 978-1-4766-4872-9.
  4. ^ Terrace, Vincent (2011). Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010. McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-6477-7. P. 713.
  5. ^ Shearer, Stephen (2006). Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life. University Press of Kentucky. p. 202. ISBN 0813171369. Retrieved 25 December 2016. Charles Drake actor.
  6. ^ Kalantari, Kianosh. Cold War Modernists.
  7. ^ "Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 1999: Film, Television, Radio, Theatre, Dance, Music, Cartoons and Pop Culture [Revised] 0786409193, 9780786409198, 9780786452040". ebin.pub. 2019-12-21. Retrieved 2024-04-12.
  8. ^ "Charles Drake Dies; Film Actor Was 76". New York Times. September 16, 1994. Retrieved April 27, 2016.
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