Lyle Florenz Talbot (born Lisle Henderson, also credited Lysle Talbot; February 8, 1902 – March 2, 1996) was an American stage, screen and television actor. His career in films spanned three decades, from 1931 to 1960, and he performed on a wide variety of television series from the early 1950s to the late 1980s. Among his notable roles on television was his portrayal of
Ozzie Nelson
Oswald George Nelson (March 20, 1906 – June 3, 1975) was an American actor, director, producer, screenwriter, musician, composer, conductor and bandleader. He originated and starred in '' The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet'', a radio and te ...
's friend and neighbor Joe Randolph, a character he played for ten years on the
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
sitcom
A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...
''
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
''The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet'' is an American television sitcom that aired on ABC from October 3, 1952, to April 23, 1966, and starred the real-life Nelson family. After a long run on radio, the show was brought to television, where it ...
''.
Talbot began his film career under contract with
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
during the early years of the
sound era
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed befor ...
. Ultimately, he appeared in more than 175 productions with various studios, first as a young
matinee idol, then as the star of many
B movies
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature ...
, and later as a
character actor.
["Lyle Talbot"](_blank)
filmography, catalog of the American Film Institute (AFI), Los Angeles, California. Retrieved 25 July 2021. He was a founding member of the
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...
and in 1933 served on that organization's first board of directors. His long career is recounted in the 2012 book ''The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's Twentieth Century'' by his youngest daughter
Margaret Talbot
Margaret Talbot is an American essayist and non-fiction writer. She is also the daughter of the veteran Warner Bros. actor Lyle Talbot, whom she profiled in an October 2012 ''The New Yorker'' article and in her book ''The Entertainer: Movies, Magi ...
, a staff writer for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
''.
Early life
Lyle was born in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
, the only child of Florence May (
née Talbot) and Joel Edward Henderson, both natives of
Nebraska
Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...
. In May 1902, just three months after Lyle's birth, Florence died at her mother's home in
Brainard, Nebraska
Brainard is a village in Butler County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 330 at the 2010 census.
History
Brainard was laid out in 1878 when the railroad was extended to that point. It was named for David Brainerd, an American mission ...
from complications attributed to
typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several ...
.
[Talbot, Margaret]
''The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's Twentieth Century''
New York: Riverhead Books, 2012, pp. 14-22; cited hereinafter "Talbot, M. ''The Entertainer''" . Retrieved 27 July 2021. Lyle was then raised in Brainard by his grandmother, Mary Talbot, who legally changed her infant grandson's surname from Henderson to her own and added "Florenz" as his middle name in memory of her daughter.
Later, as a teenager, Talbot moved with his grandmother to
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...
. There he graduated from high school before leaving home at age 17 to work as a
hypnotist's assistant, part-time magician, and as an actor, entertaining audiences at traveling tent shows and in theatres across the
American Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
.
Film career
After gaining years of stage experience in his travels, Talbot in 1929 established his own theatre company, "The Talbot Players", in
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...
, where he hired his father and stepmother, Anna Henderson, to be among the company's roster of performers. At the end of 1931, however, Talbot decided to move to California to find more lucrative acting opportunities in motion pictures. He already had some experience, though very limited, in performing on screen, namely in small roles in a few
shorts
Shorts are a garment worn over the pelvic area, circling the waist and splitting to cover the upper part of the legs, sometimes extending down to the knees but not covering the entire length of the leg. They are called "shorts" because they ...
, which included a bit part as a gangster in ''
The Nightingale'' (1931) and playing a police captain in ''The Clyde Mystery'' (1931).
[Talbot, M. ''The Entertainer'', pp. 115, 120.] Both of those low-budget,
two-reel
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
shorts were filmed in New York City and produced by Warner Bros. in affiliation with
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film system used for feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects made by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1931. Vitaphone was the last major analog sound-on-disc system and the only one ...
in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
.
Move to Hollywood, 1932
Talbot's arrival in California at the beginning of 1932 proved to be ideal timing, for
Hollywood was still in the formative years of the
sound era
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed befor ...
, when studios remained busy searching for potential leading actors who were not only engaging performers, but also had acceptable voices and articulate speech patterns for the early audio technologies being used and refined on film sets.
[Talbot, M. ''The Entertainer'', pp. 122-123, 138-141.] Talbot possessed those qualities, for his screen test at Warner Bros. went well despite the fact that the scene Talbot performed was from a play that satirized the studio's production chief
Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl Francis Zanuck (September 5, 1902December 22, 1979) was an American film producer and studio executive; he earlier contributed stories for films starting in the silent era. He played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of ...
.
It also impressed one of the studio's top directors, "Wild Bill"
William Wellman
William Augustus Wellman (February 29, 1896 – December 9, 1975) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and military pilot. He was known for his work in crime, adventure, and action genre films, often focusing on a ...
, who immediately wanted to cast the 30-year-old actor in his upcoming film ''
Love Is a Racket
''Love Is a Racket'' ( UK title: ''Such Things Happen'') is a 1932 American pre-Code romantic comedy-drama film, starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Ann Dvorak. The movie was written by Courtney Terrett from the novel by Rian James
Rian Jame ...
''.
Talbot quickly accepted Zanuck's offer to join the company's growing ranks of contract players, who included the rising stars
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her pe ...
and
Humphrey Bogart. Just prior to his work in ''Love Is a Racket'', Talbot appeared as a major supporting character, Dr. Jerome Preston, in ''
Unholy Love'', a drama produced by Warner Bros. in cooperation with
Albert Ray
Albert Ray (August 28, 1897 – February 5, 1944) was an American film director, actor, and screenwriter. He directed more than 70 films between 1920 and 1939. He also appeared in 18 films between 1915 and 1922. He was born in New Roche ...
Productions. Lyle's portrayal of "Jerry" did not go unnoticed by film industry
trade publication
A trade magazine, also called a trade journal or trade paper (colloquially or disparagingly a trade rag), is a magazine or newspaper whose target audience is people who work in a particular trade or industry. The collective term for thi ...
s. In its July 9, 1932 review of ''Unholy Love'', the popular journal ''
Motion Picture Herald The ''Motion Picture Herald'' was an American film industry trade paper published from 1931 to December 1972.Anthony Slide, ed. (1985)''International Film, Radio, and Television Journals'' Greenwood Press. p. 242. It was replaced by the ''QP Heral ...
'' encourages theater owners and prospective audiences to direct special attention on three performers in the film: "Don't overlook
Beryl Mercer
Beryl Mercer (August 13, 1882 – July 28, 1939) was a Spanish-born American actress of stage and screen who was based in the United States.
Early years
Beryl Mercer was born to British parents in Seville on 13 August 1882.
Her father wa ...
and
Ivan Lebedeff
Ivan Lebedeff (born Ivan Vasilyevich Lebedev ( rus, Иван Васильевич Лебедев), 18 June 1894 – 31 March 1953) was a Russian film actor, lecturer and writer. He appeared in 66 films between 1926 and 1953. In 1940, his no ...
, as well as Lyle Talbot, "whom Warner Brothers are grooming for stellar roles."
![Lyle Talbot in Havana Widows trailer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Lyle_Talbot_in_Havana_Widows_trailer.jpg)
Some other notable films in which Talbot was cast in his first years at Warner Bros. are ''
Three on a Match
''Three on a Match'' is a 1932 American pre-Code crime drama released by Warner Bros. The film was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and stars Joan Blondell, Warren William, Ann Dvorak and Bette Davis. The film also features Lyle Talbot, Humphrey Bog ...
'' (1932), ''
20,000 Years in Sing Sing'' (1932) with
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two cons ...
, ''
College Coach
''College Coach'' (UK title ''Football Coach'') is a 1933 American pre-Code drama film starring Dick Powell and Ann Dvorak. The film features John Wayne in his last bit-part role.
Plot
Calvert College begins taking football more seriously, over ...
'' (1933) with
Pat O'Brien Pat O'Brien may refer to:
Politicians
* Pat O'Brien (Canadian politician) (born 1948), member of the Canadian House of Commons
*Pat O'Brien (Irish politician) (c. 1847–1917), Irish Nationalist MP in the United Kingdom Parliament
Others
*Pat O'Br ...
and
Dick Powell, ''
Mary Stevens, M.D.'' (1933), ''
Ladies They Talk About
''Ladies They Talk About'' is a 1933 pre-Code American crime drama directed by Howard Bretherton and William Keighley, and starring Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, and Lyle Talbot. The film is about an attractive woman who is a member of a ba ...
'', and ''
Mandalay'' (1934) where he portrays an alcoholic doctor trying to quit drinking.
He continued to perform in a variety of co-starring roles, such as romancing
Mae West
Mae West (born Mary Jane West; August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980) was an American stage and film actress, playwright, screenwriter, singer, and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned over seven decades. She was known for her breezy ...
in ''
Go West, Young Man Go west, young man may refer to:
* "Go West, young man", a quote often attributed to American author Horace Greeley concerning America's expansion westward
Film and television
* ''Go West, Young Man'' (1918 film), an American comedy western film ...
'' (1936), pursuing opera star Grace Moore in ''
One Night of Love
''One Night of Love'' is a 1934 American Columbia Pictures romantic musical film set in the opera world, starring Grace Moore and Tullio Carminati. The film was directed by Victor Schertzinger and adapted from the story ''Don't Fall in Love'', by ...
'' (1934), and playing a bank robber on the run in ''
Heat Lightning
Heat lightning, also known as silent lightning, summer lightning, or dry lightning (not to be confused with dry thunderstorms, which are also often called dry lightning), is a misnomer used for the faint flashes of lightning on the horizon or o ...
'' (1934).
He appeared opposite an array of other stars during his career, including Bette Davis,
Ann Dvorak,
Carole Lombard,
Barbara Stanwyck,
Mary Astor
Mary Astor (born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke; May 3, 1906 – September 25, 1987) was an American actress. Although her career spanned several decades, she may be best remembered for her performance as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in '' The Maltese ...
,
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers (born Virginia Katherine McMath; July 16, 1911 – April 25, 1995) was an American actress, dancer and singer during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starri ...
,
Loretta Young
Loretta Young (born Gretchen Young; January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000) was an American actress. Starting as a child, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the fil ...
,
Glenda Farrell
Glenda Farrell (June 30, 1904 – May 1, 1971) was an American actress. Farrell personified the smart and sassy, wisecracking blonde of the Classical Hollywood films. Farrell's career spanned more than 50 years, appearing in numerous Broadwa ...
,
Joan Blondell
Joan Blondell (born Rose Joan Bluestein; August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress who performed in film and television for 50 years.
Blondell began her career in vaudeville. After winning a beauty pageant, she embarked on ...
,
Marion Davies
Marion Davies (born Marion Cecilia Douras; January 3, 1897 – September 22, 1961) was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Educated in a religious convent, Davies fled the school to pursue a career as a chorus girl ...
, and
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Jane Temple;While Temple occasionally used "Jane" as a middle name, her birth certificate reads "Shirley Temple". Her birth certificate was altered to prolong her babyhood shortly after she signed with Fox in ...
. He also shared the screen with
Humphrey Bogart,
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two cons ...
and
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power III (May 5, 1914 – November 15, 1958) was an American actor. From the 1930s to the 1950s, Power appeared in dozens of films, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads. His better-known films include ''Jesse James'', ' ...
. Overall the course of his entertainment career, Talbot performed in over 175 films.
"The 42nd Street Special" and "cheap socks"
Early in his career at Warner Bros., Talbot took part in one of Hollywood's most extravagant and ambitious publicity events, a five-week rail trip in 1933 across the United States with Bette Davis, Preston Foster, Leo Carrillo, cowboy star
Tom Mix
Thomas Edwin Mix (born Thomas Hezikiah Mix; January 6, 1880 – October 12, 1940) was an American film actor and the star of many early Western films between 1909 and 1935. He appeared in 291 films, all but nine of which were silent films. He w ...
, Olympic swimmer Eleanor Holm, comedian
Joe E. Brown
Joseph Evans Brown (July 28, 1891 – July 6, 1973) was an American actor and comedian, remembered for his friendly screen persona, comic timing, and enormous elastic-mouth smile. He was one of the most popular American comedians in the 19 ...
, and a chorus line of Busby Berkeley dancers. The established studio celebrities and rising stars and personnel traveled aboard "The
42nd Street Special," a passenger train that was elaborately decorated in silver and
gold leaf and trimmed with electric lights.
[Talbot, M. ''The Entertainer'', pp. 187, 193-194.] Stopping at dozens of cities along their journey, the Hollywood travelers widely promoted Warners' new
Busby Berkeley
Busby Berkeley (born Berkeley William Enos; November 29, 1895 – March 14, 1976) was an American film director and musical choreographer. Berkeley devised elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns. Berke ...
musical ''
42nd Street''. They also took the opportunity when the train paused in Washington, D.C. on March 4, 1933, to attend the first inauguration of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a show of the studio's support for the nation's new president. Days later, after arriving in New York City on March 9, the train returned to California. In the extensive news coverage of The 42nd Street Special's itinerary, Talbotalready divorced from a brief marriage in 1930was described in reports as the train's "Railway Romeo" and as being "'handsome as hell'" and "'likable as a collie.'"
Warner Bros. was evidently very pleased with his performances for the studio, both on- and off-set, for during the publicity excursion, the New York-based trade paper ''The Film Daily'' reports on March 1, "Lyle Talbot, now on the '42nd Street' special train touring the country, has been placed under long-term contract by Warners."
The monthly movie-fan magazine ''
Photoplay'' profiled Talbot in its March 1933 issue, distributing it to its subscribers and
newsstands at the same time the 42nd Street Special was still touring the nation. Written by Sara Hamilton and titled "Born to be a Villain But Lyle Talbot wishes they would let him go straight", the article provided readers with some insight into the popular actor's general lifestyle at the time, along with some details about his early life and personal preferences, right down to his "cheap socks":
SAG and later films
Back in Hollywood after the 1933 publicity tour and working long hours six days a week, Talbot in July 1933 decided to become a member of the first
board of directors of the
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...
. His activism in SAG union affairs reportedly hurt his career. In 1936, Warner Bros. dropped his contract, which immediately affected Talbot's acting opportunities.
[Talbot, M. ''The Entertainer'', p. 297.] He seldom received starring roles again, although he continued to find steady work as a capable character actor, often playing the "other man", affable neighbors, or crafty villains with equal finesse.
Talbot's supporting roles spanned the gamut, as he played cowboys, pirates, detectives, street cops, surgeons, psychiatrists, soldiers, judges, newspaper editors, storekeepers, and
boxers. In reflecting on his career during a 1984 interview with the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', he stated, "'It's really simple, I never turned down a job, not one...ever.'"
[Oliver Myrna (1984). "Lyle Talbot; Veteran Actor, 'Ozzie' Neighbor", obituary, ''Los Angeles Times'' (California), 5 March 1996, p. A14. ]ProQuest
ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by Eugene B. Power. ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for libraries, provid ...
Historical Newspapers, Ann Arbor, Michigan; subscription access through The University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, N.C. Such universal acceptance of acting offers led to his performing in, as Talbot himself described them in the same ''Times'' interview, "'some real stinkers'".
Those films include three by
Ed Wood
Edward Davis Wood Jr. (October 10, 1924 – December 10, 1978) was an American filmmaker,
actor, and pulp novel author.
In the 1950s, Wood directed several low-budget science fiction, crime and horror films that later became cult cla ...
that are now distinguished in American cinematic history for their extraordinarily low production values: ''
Glen or Glenda
''Glen or Glenda'' is a 1953 American exploitation film directed, written by and starring Ed Wood (credited in his starring role as "Daniel Davis"), and featuring Wood's then-girlfriend Dolores Fuller and Bela Lugosi. It was produced by George W ...
'' (1953), ''
Jail Bait'' (1954), and a motion picture often cited by media reviewers as the "'worst film ever made'", ''
Plan 9 from Outer Space'' (1959).
Talbot also worked with the
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appeare ...
in ''
Gold Raiders
''Gold Raiders'' is a 1951 comedy Western film starring George O'Brien and The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Shemp Howard). The picture was O'Brien's last starring role and the only feature film released during Shemp Howard's 1947 ...
'' (1951) and played villains in four comedies with
The Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys are fictional New York City characters, portrayed by a company of New York actors, who were the subject of 48 feature films released by Monogram Pictures and its successor Allied Artists Pictures Corporation from 1946 through 1 ...
.
Talbot was notable too for being the first live-action actor to play two prominent
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...
characters on-screen:
Commissioner Gordon in ''
Batman and Robin'', and
supervillain Lex Luthor
Alexander Joseph "Lex" Luthor () is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Lex Luthor originally appeared in ''Action Comics'' #23 (cover dated: April ...
in ''
Atom Man vs. Superman
''Atom Man vs. Superman'' is a 1950 American film serial and the second Superman movie serial featuring Kirk Alyn, credited (as with the previous serial) only by his character name, Superman.
When Lex Luthor blackmails the city of Metropolis by ...
'' (who at the time was simply known as Luthor). Talbot began a longstanding tradition of actors in these roles that were most recently (as of 2022) filled by
Jeffrey Wright
Jeffrey Wright (born December 7, 1965) is an American actor. He is well known for his role as Belize in the Broadway production of ''Angels in America'', for which he would win a Tony Award, and its HBO miniseries adaptation, for which he woul ...
and
Jesse Eisenberg
Jesse Adam Eisenberg (; born October 5, 1983) is an American actor, writer, and director. He has received various accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, a Golden Globe Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. ...
, respectively.
In 1960, after an absence of more than 20 years, Talbot returned to the
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
big screen, appearing in the Franklin D. Roosevelt bio-pic, ''
Sunrise at Campobello
''Sunrise at Campobello'' is a 1960 Warner Bros. biographical film telling the story of the struggles of future President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his family when Roosevelt was stricken with paralysis at the age of 39 ...
'' written by
Dore Schary
Isadore "Dore" Schary (August 31, 1905 – July 7, 1980) was an American playwright, director, and producer for the stage and a prolific screenwriter and producer of motion pictures. He directed just one feature film, '' Act One'', the film bio ...
and starring
Ralph Bellamy
Ralph Rexford Bellamy (June 17, 1904 – November 29, 1991) was an American actor whose career spanned 65 years on stage, film, and television. During his career, he played leading roles as well as supporting roles, garnering acclaim and ...
. It was Talbot's penultimate film appearance.
Return to the stage
Having started his career in the theatre and later co-starred on
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
in 1940–1941 in ''Separate Rooms'' with Glenda Farrell and Alan Dinehart, Talbot returned to the stage in the 1960s and 1970s, starring in national road company versions of
Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes — for the novel '' The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' and for the plays ''Our Town'' and '' The Skin of Our Teeth'' — ...
's ''
The Matchmaker
''The Matchmaker'' is a 1954 play by Thornton Wilder, a rewritten version of his 1938 play ''The Merchant of Yonkers''.
History
The play has a long and colorful history. John Oxenford's 1835 one-act farce ''A Day Well Spent'' had been exte ...
'' with Ann B. Davis;
Gore Vidal
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (; born Eugene Louis Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012) was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner. Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and e ...
's ''
The Best Man'' with Hugh Marlowe and K.T. Stevens;
Neil Simon
Marvin Neil Simon (July 4, 1927 – August 26, 2018) was an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He wrote more than 30 plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays, mostly film adaptations of his plays. He has received mo ...
's ''
The Odd Couple Odd Couple may refer to:
Neil Simon play and its adaptations
* ''The Odd Couple'' (play), a 1965 stage play by Neil Simon
** ''The Odd Couple'' (film), a 1968 film based on the play
*** ''The Odd Couple'' (1970 TV series), a 1970–1975 televisi ...
'' and ''
Barefoot in the Park
''Barefoot in the Park'' is a romantic comedy by Neil Simon. The play premiered on Broadway in 1963, starring Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley. It was made into a film in 1967, which starred Redford and Jane Fonda.
Productions
''Barefoot ...
''; Arthur Sumner Long's play ''Never Too Late'' with Penny Singleton;
and appearing as Captain Brackett in a 1967 revival of ''
South Pacific'' at (
Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...
) starring Florence Henderson and Giorgio Tozzi. He also starred in Preston Jones' "The Last Meeting of the Knights of the White Magnolia" at the Alley Theatre in Houston and the Chicago area Lincolnshire Theater. He rode the wave of the dinner theater phenomenon in the 1970s, acting in light comedies onstage in various Midwestern towns where former television actors were major attractions. As early as 1962, Talbot directed and co-starred with Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and a young Sally "Hot Lips" Kellerman in ''Marriage Go Round'', a play Talbot and the Nelsons took on the road again in the early 1970s.
Television, 1950s1980s
Although Talbot once starred in the film ''
Trapped by Television'' (1936), the invention of TV actually revived his acting career after the quality of his movie roles began to decline. Talbot was a frequent presence on American television from the 1950s well into the 1970s with occasional appearances in the 1980s. From 1955 to 1966, he regularly appeared in episodes of ''
The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
''The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet'' is an American television sitcom that aired on ABC from October 3, 1952, to April 23, 1966, and starred the real-life Nelson family. After a long run on radio, the show was brought to television, where it ...
'' as neighbor Joe Randolph. He also had a recurring role (1955–58) as Paul Fonda in numerous episodes of ''
The Bob Cummings Show
''The Bob Cummings Show'' (also known in reruns as ''Love That Bob'') is an American sitcom starring Bob Cummings, which was broadcast from January 2, 1955, to September 15, 1959.
The program began with a half-season run on NBC, then ran for tw ...
''.
Talbot also acted in a variety of early television Westerns. He played Colonel Billings three times on ''
The Adventures of Kit Carson
''The Adventures of Kit Carson'' is an American Western that aired from 1951 to 1955. The show ran for four seasons and consisted of 104 episodes over four years. The original air date was Saturday, August 11, 1951. It concluded on January 22, 19 ...
'' (1951–1955), appeared four times as a judge on the syndicated series ''
The Cisco Kid
The Cisco Kid is a fictional character found in numerous film, radio, television and comic book series based on the fictional Western character created by O. Henry in his 1907 short story "The Caballero's Way", published in '' Everybody's Magaz ...
'', guest-starred in four episodes of
Gene Autry's ''
The Range Rider
''The Range Rider'' is an American Western television series that was first broadcast in syndication from 1951 to 1953. A single lost episode surfaced and was broadcast in 1959. ''The Range Rider'' was also broadcast on British television durin ...
'' in 1952 and 1953, was cast five times in different roles on ''
The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger is a fictional masked former Texas Ranger who fought outlaws in the American Old West with his Native American friend Tonto. The character has been called an enduring icon of American culture.
He first appeared in 1933 in ...
'' between 1950 and 1955, and played Sheriff Clyde Chadwick in the 1959 episode "The Sanctuary" on ''
Colt .45''. In the 1950s and beyond, he performed as well in a wide range of other drama and comedy programs. In 1955 he portrayed the character Baylor in six episodes or "chapters" of the early sci-fi series ''
Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe''. From 1953 to 1957, he was cast as different characters in four episodes of the
anthology series
An anthology series is a radio, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a differ ...
''
Lux Video Theatre
''Lux Video Theatre'' is an American television anthology series that was produced from 1950 until 1957. The series presented both comedy and drama in original teleplays, as well as abridged adaptations of films and plays.
Overview
The ''Lux Vid ...
''. In 1967, he played Colonel Blake three times on ''
The Beverly Hillbillies
''The Beverly Hillbillies'' is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor, backwoods family f ...
'' and appeared three times between 1965 and 1971 on ''
Green Acres.'' On one episode of ''Green Acres'' Talbot played himself but in the fictional role of a senator, spoofing actors such as
Ronald Reagan who actually became politicians later in their careers.
Some examples of other series on which Talbot made guest appearances include ''
Annie Oakley
Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey; August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) was an American sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.
Oakley developed hunting skills as a child to provide for her impoverished family in western ...
''; ''
It's a Great Life''; ''
The Public Defender
''The Public Defender'' is a 1931 American pre-Code crime film directed by J. Walter Ruben, starring Richard Dix and featuring Boris Karloff. Rich playboy Pike Winslow dons the mantle of 'The Reckoner', a mysterious avenger, when he learns that ...
''; ''
The Pride of the Family
''The Pride of the Family'' is a 30-minute American television situation comedy that was broadcast on ABC from October 2, 1953, until September 24, 1954. CBS showed reruns of the program in prime time in the summer of 1955.
Premise
Albie Morris ...
''; ''
Crossroads
Crossroads, crossroad, cross road or similar may refer to:
* Crossroads (junction), where four roads meet
Film and television Films
* ''Crossroads'' (1928 film), a 1928 Japanese film by Teinosuke Kinugasa
* ''Cross Roads'' (film), a 1930 Brit ...
''; ''
Hey, Jeannie!
''Hey, Jeannie!'', retitled ''The Jeannie Carson Show'' during its second season and also during later prime-time reruns, is an American situation comedy that aired on CBS during the 1956-1957 television season and in first-run syndication during ...
''; ''
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
''The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show'', sometimes called ''The Burns and Allen Show'', was a half-hour television situation comedy broadcast from 1950 to 1958 on CBS. It starred George Burns and Gracie Allen, one of the most enduring acts in ...
''; ''
Broken Arrow''; ''
The Millionaire''; ''
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
''Richard Diamond, Private Detective'' is an American detective drama, created by Blake Edwards, which aired on radio from 1949 to 1953, and on television from 1957 to 1960.
Radio
Dick Powell starred in the ''Richard Diamond, Private Detective' ...
''; ''
Tales of Wells Fargo''; ''
Buckskin''; ''
Cimarron City
Cimarron City is a town in Logan County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 150 at the 2010 census, a 39.4 percent gain over the figure of 110 in 2000. ''; ''
Angel
In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God.
Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles inclu ...
''; ''
Hawaiian Eye''; ''
77 Sunset Strip
''77 Sunset Strip'' is an American television private detective drama series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Roger Smith, Richard Long (from 1960 to 1961) and Edd Byrnes (billed as Edward Byrnes). Each episode was o ...
''; ''
Surfside 6
''Surfside 6'' is an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered on a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison (a character recyc ...
''; ''
The Roaring 20s''; ''
The Restless Gun
''The Restless Gun'' is an American Western television series that appeared on NBC between 1957 and 1959, with John Payne in the role of Vint Bonner, a wandering cowboy in the era after the American Civil War. A skilled gunfighter, Bonner is a ...
''; ''
Stagecoach West
Stagecoach West is the trading name of Cheltenham & Gloucester Omnibus Company Limited, a bus operator providing services in Gloucestershire, Bristol, Swindon, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, North Somerset and Herefordshire, in the West of England. ...
''; ''
The Red Skelton Show
''The Red Skelton Show'' is an American television comedy/variety show that aired from 1951 to 1971. In the decade prior to hosting the show, Richard "Red" Skelton had a successful career as a radio and motion pictures star. Although his televi ...
''; ''
The Lucy Show
''The Lucy Show'' is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from 1962 to 1968. It was Lucille Ball's follow-up to '' I Love Lucy''. A significant change in cast and premise for the fourth season (1965–1966) divides the program into two distin ...
'', ''
The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok
''The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok'' is an American Western television series that ran for eight seasons from April 15, 1951, through September 24, 1958. The Screen Gems series began in syndication, but ran on CBS from June 5, 1955, through 19 ...
''; ''
Topper''; ''
The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin
''The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin'' is an American children's television series in the Western genre that aired from October 1954 to May 1959 on the ABC television network. In all, 164 episodes aired. The show starred Lee Aaker as Rusty, a boy o ...
''; ''
Laredo''; ''
Perry Mason
Perry Mason is a fictional character, an American criminal defense lawyer who is the main character in works of detective fiction written by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason features in 82 novels and 4 short stories, all of which involve a c ...
''; ''
The Real McCoys
''The Real McCoys'' is an American situation comedy starring Walter Brennan, Richard Crenna, and Kathleen Nolan. Co-produced by Danny Thomas's Marterto Productions in association with Walter Brennan and Irving Pincus's Westgate Company, ...
''; ''
Rawhide''; ''
Wagon Train
''Wagon Train'' is an American Western series that aired 8 seasons: first on the NBC television network (1957–1962), and then on ABC (1962–1965). ''Wagon Train'' debuted on September 18, 1957, and became number one in the Nielsen ratings ...
''; ''
Charlie's Angels''; ''
Newhart
''Newhart'' is an American sitcom television series that aired on CBS from October 25, 1982, to May 21, 1990, with a total of 184 half-hour episodes spanning eight seasons. The series stars Bob Newhart and Mary Frann as an author and his wife, ...
''; ''
The Dukes of Hazzard
''The Dukes of Hazzard'' is an American action comedy TV series that was aired on CBS from January 26, 1979 to February 8, 1985. The show aired for 147 episodes spanning seven seasons. It was consistently among the top-rated television serie ...
''; ''
St. Elsewhere'';
Adam-12, and ''
Who's the Boss?''.
Talbot continued to act on television into the 1980s. He also narrated at that time two televised
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
biographies, ''The Case of Dashiell Hammett'' (1982) and ''World Without Walls'' (1986) about pioneering female pilot
Beryl Markham
Beryl Markham (née Clutterbuck; 26 October 1902 – 3 August 1986) was a Kenyan aviator born in England (one of the first bush pilots), adventurer, racehorse trainer and author. She was the first person to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlant ...
. Both PBS programs were produced and written by his son
Stephen Talbot, a former child actor who portrayed the recurring character Gilbert Bates on ''
Leave It to Beaver'', another series on which his father performed in several episodes.
Personal life and death
Talbot had many romantic entanglements and several brief marriages to Elaine Melchoir (1930), Marguerite Cramer (1937–1940), Abigail Adams (1942), and Keven "Eve" McClure (1946–1947) who next married novelist Henry Miller. Talbot married for the fifth time and final time in 1948 to Margaret Epple, a young actress and singer who adopted the name "Paula" and sometimes went by the stage names of "Paula Deaven" or "Margaret Abbott." She was 20; he was a 46-year-old actor with a drinking problem.
Under Paula's influence, Talbot quit drinking, and the couple often performed together on stage in summer stock and community theater. They had four children, lived in
Studio City, California
Studio City is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California, in the southeast San Fernando Valley, just west of the Cahuenga Pass. It is named after the studio lot that was established in the area by film producer Mack Sennett in 192 ...
(where Talbot was honorary mayor in the 1960s), and remained married for more than 40 years, until Paula's death in 1989.
After his wife's death, Talbot moved to San Francisco, where both of his sons and their families lived. On March 2, 1996, Talbot died at the age of 94 at his home in
San Francisco, California
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
. His death was attributed to
congestive heart failure
Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, ...
.
He was survived by his children, three of whom
Stephen Talbot,
David Talbot
David Talbot (born September 22, 1951) is an American journalist, author, activist and independent historian. Talbot is known for his books about the "hidden history" of U.S. power and the liberal movements to change America, as well as his p ...
, and
Margaret Talbot
Margaret Talbot is an American essayist and non-fiction writer. She is also the daughter of the veteran Warner Bros. actor Lyle Talbot, whom she profiled in an October 2012 ''The New Yorker'' article and in her book ''The Entertainer: Movies, Magi ...
had established careers in media production, writing, or journalism. Cynthia Talbot, Lyle's elder daughter, instead pursued a medical career, becoming a physician and later a residency director in
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
.
Filmography
Notes
References
External links
*
*
, -
, style="width:35%; text-align:center;", First
, style="width:30%; text-align:center;", Actors portraying
Lex Luthor
Alexander Joseph "Lex" Luthor () is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Lex Luthor originally appeared in ''Action Comics'' #23 (cover dated: April ...
1950
for ''
Atom Man vs. Superman
''Atom Man vs. Superman'' is a 1950 American film serial and the second Superman movie serial featuring Kirk Alyn, credited (as with the previous serial) only by his character name, Superman.
When Lex Luthor blackmails the city of Metropolis by ...
''
, style="width:35%; text-align:center;", Succeeded by
Gene Hackmanfor ''
Superman
Superman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, and debuted in the comic book ''Action Comics'' #1 (cover-dated June 1938 and publi ...
'', ''
Superman II
''Superman II'' is a 1980 superhero film directed by Richard Lester and written by Mario Puzo and David and Leslie Newman from a story by Puzo based on the DC Comics character Superman. It is the second installment in the ''Superman'' film se ...
'' and
''
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Talbot, Lyle
1902 births
1996 deaths
Male actors from Nebraska
American male stage actors
American male film actors
American male television actors
People from Butler County, Nebraska
20th-century American male actors