Don Abney (1923-2000) [Pete Kelly's Blues (1955); Cindy (1978) (TV)] was born in Baltimore, Maryland and became a jazz pianist accompanist to Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae, Thelma Carpenter, and the Billy Williams Quartet
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- Robert "Bob" Cummings
- Joined the Navy at age 17 in 1943 and served on a submarine tender during World War II. In Tokyo Bay in 1945 he watched the surrender ceremonies from the signal bridge of the USS Proteus
- Contributed to the war effort during World War II by joining the Entertainment National Services Association
- He served in the U.S. Army Infantry during World War II
- His performing career began as part of the 44th Special Service Provisional Company during World War II
- He served as a Lieutenant (j.g.) in the Navy during World War II from 1944-1946
- Dell took a leave from the film business during World War II and served in the Merchant Marine for 3-1/2 years
- During World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served on a submarine as Yeoman 1st Class
- At 36 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor he was too old for active duty but he was an avid pilot and owned a flying school that trained flyers for the government during World War II
- He joined the Air Corps during World War II and was assigned to the troupe performing the Moss Hart Broadway tribute to the Corps, Winged Victory
- In 1941, he joined the American Red Cross and served in Great Britain during World War II
- James Doohan
- World War II interrupted his career; soon after his military service was complete
- Military service interrupted his early career and he served with the U.S. Army Air Forces radio service from 1941 to 1945.
Richard Cromwell (1910-1960) [Fifty Fathoms Deep (1931); Jezebel (1938)] was born LeRoy Melvin Radabaugh (nicknamed "Roy") in Long Beach, California. After filming Baby Face Morgan (1942), he joined the Coast Guard in 1942 and served for two years. When he returned to civilian life, he did not seek out Hollywood, but settled comfortably into his art work -- ceramics and pottery, in particular. 
Robert "Bob" Cummings (1910-1990) [Saboteur (1942); Dial M for Murder (1954)] was a pilot during WW II, once stationed at Oxnard, California. According to an article in Flying Magazine, when the government began licensing flight instructors, Cummings received flight instructor certificate number "1", the first instructor to receive a license. He was a godson of Orville Wright, an old family friend, who also taught him to fly. Cummings piloted his own plane most of his life. He was chosen by producer John Wayne as his co-star in The High and the Mighty (1954), though director William A. Wellman replaced him with Robert Stack. 
Tony Curtis (1925-2010) [Trapeze (1956), The Boston Strangler (1968)]. Joined the Navy at age 17 in 1943 and served on a submarine tender during World War II. In Tokyo Bay in 1945 he watched the surrender ceremonies from the signal bridge of the USS Proteus. After the war he enrolled in drama school on the G.I. Bill. 
Peter Cushing (1913-1994) [The Man in the Iron Mask (1939); Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)]. Contributed to the war effort during World War II by joining the Entertainment National Services Association. Born in Kenley, Surrey, England, he and his older brother David were raised first in Dulwich Village, a south London suburb, and then later back in Surrey by his mother Nellie Marie and father George Edward. 
Dan Dailey (1913-1978) [Dizzy Dean in The Pride of St. Louis (1952); The Wings of Eagles (1957)]. Born in New York City, Dailey started his career in vaudeville, later making his Broadway debut in the stage version of Babes in Arms. When signed to MGM, the studio initially casted him as a Nazi in The Mortal Storm (1940). The studio realized their mistake and cast him in musical films thereafter. Then, after serving in World War II, Dailey later returned to acting to make more musicals. 
Bill Dana (1924- ) [The Busy Body (1967); Lena's Holiday (1991)] was born in Quincy, Massachusetts and educated at Emerson College. He became a comedian, actor, author and composer. He served in the U.S. Army Infantry during World War II. Later, he was part of the team "Dana and Wood" on television and in supper clubs. As a single, he appeared on television with Martha Raye and Imogene Coca and was a writer for Steve Allen, and he also appeared in night clubs and on records. His most popular-song compositions include "My Name Jose Jimenez", "All About Love" and "Big Bells and Bongo Drummers". 
Royal Dano (1922-1994) was born in New York. He ran away from home at age 12 and lived in such states as Texas, Florida and California. He struck a deal with his father to continue his education, but still be able to travel around the country. Dano eventually attended NYU. His performing career began as part of the 44th Special Service Provisional Company during World War II. A few of Dano's more memorable roles include the Tattered Soldier in The Red Badge of Courage, a sickly bookworm bad guy in Johnny Guitar, Elijah in Moby Dick, Peter in King of Kings, a cattle rustler in The Culpepper Cattle Company, a coroner in Electra Glide in Blue, a profanity-spewing preacher in Big Bad Mama and Ten Spot in The Outlaw Josey Wales. 
Helmut Dantine (1917-1982) [The Pied Piper (1942); The Fifth Musketeer (1979)] was an actor/ director/ producer born in Vienna, Austria. He made a name for himself as an actor during World War II playing German soldiers and Nazi villains in Hollywood films, most notably, Mrs. Miniver (1942). The young Dantine was a fervent anti-fascist/ anti-Nazi activist in Vienna. As a leader in the anti-Nazi youth movement the 19-year old was summarily rounded up and imprisoned at the Rosserlaende concentration camp. Family influence persuaded a physician to grant him a medical release that June and he was immediately sent to Los Angeles to stay with a family friend and he quickly found work in movies. 
Sammy Davis Jr. (1925-1990) [Sweet and Low (1947) (as Will Maston Trio); The Cannonball Run (1981)] was an American all-around entertainer. He danced, sang, played vibraphone and drums, did impressions, and acted. He was born in Harlem, New York City to a Puerto Rican mother and an Afro-American father who were vaudeville dancers. As an infant, he was raised by his paternal grandmother. When he was three years old, his parents split up. His father, not wanting to lose custody of his son, took him on tour. As a child he learned how to dance from his father, Sammy Davis, Sr. and his uncle Will Mastin, who led the dance troup his father worked for. Davis joined the act as a young child and they became the Will Mastin Trio. Throughout his long career, Davis included the Will Mastin Trio in his billing. Mastin and his father had shielded him from racism. Snubs were explained as jealousy, for instance, but during World War II, Davis served in the United States Army, where he was first confronted by strong racial prejudice. While in the service, however, he joined an entertainment unit, and found that the spotlight removed some of the prejudice. "My talent was the weapon, the power, the way for me to fight. It was the one way I might hope to affect a man's thinking," he said. 
Dennis Day (1916-1988) [Buck Benny Rides Again (1940); The Girl Next Door (1953)] was born Owen Patrick McNulty in the Bronx, New York, the son of an Ireland-born stationary engineer. The strength and promise of his lilting tenor voice was first discovered while performing with his glee club at St. Patrick's Cathedral High School. Graduating from Manhattan College, he first had designs on a law career and starting singing in order to earn money for tuition. Jack Benny gave him a break in 1939 and kept him employed as a singer and naive comic sidekick until Benny's death. His "Gee, Mr. Benny!" became a well-known catchphrase on the show. Dennis in fact would play second-banana to the comedian until Benny passed in 1974. He served as a Lieutenant (j.g.) in the Navy during World War II from 1944-1946. 
Doris Day (1922- ) [Calamity Jane (1953); Love Me or Leave Me (1955); Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960)] was born, Doris Mary Ann Von Kapplehoff, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her parents divorced when she was about 10 and she lived with her mother. She liked to dance and aspired to become a professional ballerina, but an automobile accident that crushed a leg ended whatever hopes she had of dancing on stage. It was a terrible setback, but after taking singing lessons she found a new vocation, and began singing with local bands. Day's agent talked her into taking a screen test at Warner Bros. and she starred in her first film, Romance on the High Seas (1948). To this day she has a fear of flying that stemmed from tours with Bob Hope to entertain the troops during World War II that resulted in some close calls in impenetrable winter weather. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush in 2004 but could not attend the White House award ceremony because of her intense fear of flying. She called President Bush with an apology. She almost turned down her role in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) because it was to be filmed in London and Marrakesh. Her husband and manager, Martin Melcher talked her into accepting the role. Devoted to the well being of pets, she has spent her years in retirement running pet shelters in Carmel, Calif. 
John Dehner (November 23, 1915-February 04, 1992). [Sheriff Pat Garrett in The Left-Handed Gun (1958); Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971).] Tall, distinguished-looking character actor usually cast as villain or humorless authority figure. Began career as an animation assistant at Walt Disney Studios, worked as an Army publicist during WWII and, as a Los Angeles radio news reporter, editor and announcer. Netted his station a Peabody Award for his coverage of the first UN conference in San Francisco in the late 1940s. Dehner started acting in films in 1945, eventually appearing in over 100 features, mostly westerns or action films. 
Gabriel Dell (1919-1988) [Dead End (1937); The Escape Artist (1982)], the son of an Italian immigrant doctor, "Gabe" Dell began his career singing in a boys church choir and then on a children's radio show. He made his stage debut in the play Dead End and, with the other juvenile members of the cast, was called to Hollywood for the film version and became a regular member of the East Side Kids/ Dead End Kids/ Bowery Boys. Dell took a leave from the film business during World War II and served in the Merchant Marine for 3-1/2 years. When he returned he played in a few more of the Bowery Boys series, but made his final film with them in 1950 and struck out on his own. 
Richard Denning (1914-1998) [An Affair to Remember (1957); Some Like it Hot (1959)]. He was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, as Louis Albert Denninger Jr. After graduating from Woodbury College in Los Angeles, California he joined his father in the garment business and worked his way up from office boy to vice president. He never liked accounting and looked for diversions in little theater groups as a hobby. Acting suited him so well he switched careers. He starred in such movies as Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) but he's most famous for his role as Governor of Hawaii Paul Jameson in the CBS television network series Hawaii Five-O (1968-1980). During World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served on a submarine as Yeoman 1st Class. 
Andy Devine (1905-1977) [The Spirit of Notre Dame (1931); Myra Breckinridge (1970)] was born Andrew Vabre Devine in Flagstaff, Arizona. The later-to-be Rotund comic character actor was raised in nearby Kingman, Arizona, the son of Irish-American hotel operator Thomas Devine and his wife Amy. Devine was an able athlete as a student and actually played semi-pro football under a phony name Jeremiah Schwartz, often erroneously presumed to be his real name. Devine used the false name in order to remain eligible for college football. At 36 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor he was too old for active duty but he was an avid pilot and owned a flying school that trained flyers for the government during World War II. 
Brad Dexter (1917-2002) an American actor, was born Boris Milanovich. He is best known for his role as Harry Luck in The Magnificent Seven (1960). He was born in Goldfield, Nevada of Serbian parentage. Burly, dark and handsome, Brad Dexter was usually given supporting roles of a rugged character. Early in his acting career, he went by the name of Barry Mitchell. After having a stint as an amateur boxer, Dexter attended the Pasadena Playhouse where he studied theatre. He joined the Air Corps during World War II and was assigned to the troupe performing the Moss Hart Broadway tribute to the Corps, Winged Victory, acting under his first chosen stage name, Barry Mitchell. His career in Hollywood spanned over four decades. Other films Dexter appeared in include Last Train from Gun Hill (1959), Kings of the Sun (1963), and Johnny Cool (1963). Dexter's relationship with singer and actor Frank Sinatra began in 1964 when he saved him from drowning. Sinatra was swimming at the beach while on location and began to be pulled into the undertow along with his female co-star. Dexter immediately sprang to his aid and was able to save them both. He was awarded by the Red Cross for his heroism. Dexter appeared in a few movies with Sinatra, including Von Ryan's Express (1965) as Sgt. Bostick and None But the Brave (1965). The two later had a falling out and Dexter complained of Sinatra's pettiness and the fact that he never thanked him or gave him credit for saving him. Dexter helped produce Skag with fellow American-Serb actor Karl Malden. He died in Rancho Mirage, California from emphysema. 
John Dierkes (1905-1975) [Three Husbands (1951); The Hanging Tree (1959)] was a tall and gaunt American character actor prominent in a number of classic American films. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, he attended Brown University and subsequently went to work as an economist for the United States Department of State. In 1941, he joined the American Red Cross and served in Great Britain during World War II. There he met director John Huston, who took a liking to Dierkes and recommended that he try Hollywood after the war. Instead, Dierkes went to work for the U.S. Treasury Department, which, coincidentally, sent him to Hollywood to function as technical adviser on the film To the Ends of the Earth (1948). Orson Welles cast him as Ross in his adaptation of Macbeth (1948). Dierkes returned to the Treasury Department, but two years later, Huston called on him to play the tall soldier in The Red Badge of Courage (1951). Dierkes took a leave of absence from his job, a leave which lasted for the rest of Dierkes's life. His quiet dignity and distinctive appearance led him to dozens of roles in film and on television. In John Wayne's The Alamo (1960), Dierkes plays a Scot, "Jocko Robertson", named after Dierkes's own maternal grandfather. He died in 1975, and was survived by his wife, two sons, and two daughters. 
Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992) [Destry Rides Again (1939); The Flame of New Orleans (1941)]. Best remembered during WWII, Dietrich -- a German who had renounced her country following the rise of the Nazis and rejected Hitler's request that she return -- became an ardent and fearless supporter of the Allied Forces, performing hundreds of times for the troops as near the war zone as she could get. 
James Doohan (1920-2005) ["Scotty" on Star Trek]. Landed in Normandy with the U. S. Army on D-Day. Landed on Juno Beach on D-Day as a member of the Royal Canadian Artillery. Soon after, while walking across a mine field, he and his unit were attacked by enemy fire, as the Germans shot at them with machine guns. He was hit by four bullets to the leg, his middle finger of his right hand was shot off, and a bullet struck his chest. His life was saved when it hit a silver cigarette case which had been given to him by his brother. 
Roy Dotrice (1923- ) [The Heroes of Telemark (1965); Amadeus (1984)] is a British actor born on the Island of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of France, which is part of the UK. He was the first-born child of Louis and Neva Dotrice who prospered as bakers. The Germans occupied the island in 1940 and he and his mother and brother escaped to England. Advancing his real age, Roy joined the Royal Air Force at age 16 and was trained as a wireless operator and air gunner. In 1942 his plane was shot down and he was captured where he served out the remainder of World War II (over three years) as a prisoner of war in Germany. He was introduced to the idea of performing when he took part in various makeshift concerts in order to raise the spirits of his fellow captives. 
Kirk Douglas (1916- ) [Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957); In Harm's Way (1965)]. He only appeared in a handful of minor Broadway productions before joining the U.S. Navy in 1941, and then after the end of hostilities in 1945, returned to the theater and some radio work. On the insistence of ex-classmate Lauren Bacall, movie producer Hal B. Wallis screen-tested Douglas and cast him in the lead role in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946). His performance received rave reviews and further work quickly followed, including an appearance in the low-key drama I Walk Alone (1948), the first time he worked alongside fellow future screen legend, Burt Lancaster. [Lancaster and Douglas acted together in 7 movies: Victory at Entebbe (1976) (TV); Tough Guys (1986); Seven Days in May (1964); The List of Adrian Messenger (1963); I Walk Alone (1948); Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957); and The Devil's Disciple (1959)] 
Charles Drake (1917-1994) [Winchester '73 (1950); To Hell and Back (1955)] was born Charles Ruppert. He graduated from Nichols College and became a salesman. In 1939 he turned to acting and signed a contract with Warner Brothers. He wasn't immediately successful. World War II interrupted his career; soon after his military service was complete, Drake returned to Hollywood in 1945 but his contract with Warner Brothers ended. In the 1940s, he did some freelance work, like A Night in Casablanca. In 1949 he moved to Universal Studios. In 1955, Drake turned to television as one of the stock-company players on Robert Montgomery Presents and three years later he became the host of the British TV espionage weekly Rendezvous. He played in 83 films between 1939 and 1975. Over fifty of them were dramas, but he also acted in comedies, science fiction, horror and film noir. 
Howard Duff (1913-1990) [The Naked City (1948); While the City Sleeps (1956)]. His full name was Howard Green Duff and he was born in Bremerton, Washington. Growing up in and around the Seattle area, he attended Roosevelt High School where he played basketball. It was here that he also found an outlet acting in school plays and, following graduation, studied drama. He eventually became an acting member of the Repertory Playhouse in Seattle. Military service interrupted his early career and he served with the U.S. Army Air Force's radio service from 1941 to 1945. Upon his discharge, he returned to his acting pursuits and won the role of Sam Spade on NBC Radio in the role Humphrey Bogart made famous in The Maltese Falcon (1941). -- [Excerpted from IMDB] 
Andrew Duggan (1923-1988) [Patterns (1954); A Return to Salem's Lot 1987] was born in Franklin, Indiana on December 28, 1923, he was raised in Texas and went to college at Indiana University. There, on a speech and drama scholarship, he began to act and perform however this was interrupted by being called into the service. In World War II where he saw action overseas, he was befriended by actor Melvyn Douglas who led his division. With such encouragement, as well as meeting and becoming familiar with some Broadway folks, Duggan went into acting. From 1953 through practically the time of his death in 1988, he was a fixture in both movies and television. It is impossible to list all the different shows this prolific actor was part of either as support, guest or star. But to give an idea, he was General Ed Britt on Twelve O'Clock High, he was Cal Calhoun in Bourbon Beat and his most famous role as Murdoch Lancer in Lancer and the original John Walton opposite Patricia Neal in The Homecoming, A Christmas Story. Many people will remember him as "Howitzer" Al Hoolihan, the father of Hotlips in MASH. It was in 1954 that he married the Broadway actress Elizabeth Logue whom he always called "Betty". Both Andrew Duggan and his wife were cremated, their ashes scattered at Lake Arrowhead, California. 
Directory: cms -> lib -> PA09000087 -> Centricity -> Domain Domain -> The ap history Timeline 8000bce-the Present Domain -> Objectives: Identify economic and social problems Americans faced after World War II Domain -> Chapter 6, Problem Set #5 – More Work with Comparative Advantage and Trade Domain -> Image: Die cut of the Knight Helmet Domain -> Active voice example Domain -> Weak Syllable Deletion Domain -> American Civil War and Reconstruction Timeline Download 0.78 Mb. Share with your friends:
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