Gabriel Dell
| Gabriel Dell | |
|---|---|
| Born | Gabriel Marcel Dell Vecchio October 8, 1919 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | July 3, 1988 (aged 68) North Hollywood, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1937–1982 |
| Spouse | Barbara Dell (?-1953) (divorced) Viola Essen 1 child |
Gabriel Dell (October 8, 1919 – July 3, 1988) was an American actor and one of the members of what came to be known as the Dead End Kids/East Side Kids/The Bowery Boys.
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[edit] Early life
Born Gabriel Marcel Dell Vecchio in New York City, Dell almost made his stage debut a few years before Dead End when he and his sister were slated for roles in The Good Earth with Alla Nazimova and Claude Rains.
[edit] Career
By the time he was cast in Dead End, he had changed his last name to Dell, and after achieving fame with the other youthful thugs, Dell moved back and forth between Warner Bros., Universal and Monogram during the guys' heyday, appearing as a member of the Dead End Kids, East Side Kids and The Bowery Boys before leaving the series in 1950.
He won a role in Tickets, Please! on Broadway, and also toured with former gang buddy Huntz Hall in a nightclub partnership that eventually caused them both to become divorced. Dell spent the next three years at the Actor's Studio, married and had a son in 1956.
In the late 1950s, Dell joined the stock company of The Steve Allen Show, along with Don Knotts, Louis Nye, Tom Poston, Bill Dana, Pat Harrington, Dayton Allen and Skitch Henderson. During this period Dell developed a Bela Lugosi imitation, usually used comedically.
Over the next few years Dell appeared in several productions on and off Broadway and supplied all of the voices for an LP recording of Famous Monsters Speak, on which he did his Lugosi impression in a serious context. In 1964 Dell won the role the title character in Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. In 1967, he guest starred in an episode of The Fugitive, "There Goes The Ballgame".
Dell had several other roles, a second son, a third wife, and roles on several TV series in the fifties and sixties. In the latter part of his life, Dell also appeared as the proprietor of The Corner Bar (1972) on ABC, a supporting role in Earthquake, a 1976 pilot, Risko, and A Year at the Top, in which he played opposite Mickey Rooney as the Devil's son.
[edit] Death
Dell died in North Hollywood of leukemia in 1988 at age 68.
