Lyle Talbot | |
---|---|
in the trailer for the film
Havana Widows (1933) |
|
Born |
Lisle Henderson February 8, 1902 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Died | March 2, 1996 San Francisco, California, U.S. |
(aged 94)
Cause of death | Congestive heart failure |
Years active | 1931–1987 |
Spouse(s) | Margaret Epple (1948-1989; her death); 4 children Keven McClure (1946-1947; divorced) Abigail Adams (1942; annulled) Marguerite Cramer (1937-1940; divorced) Elaine Melchior (1930; divorced) |
Lyle Talbot (February 8, 1902 – March 2, 1996) was an American actor on stage and screen, best known for his long career in film from 1931 to 1960 and for his frequent appearances on television in the 1950s and 1960s. He played Ozzie Nelson's friend and neighbor, Joe Randolph, for ten years in the ABC situation comedy, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
He began his movie career under contract with Warner Brothers in the early days of sound film. He appeared in more than 150 films, first as a young matinée idol and later as a character actor and star of many B movies. He was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and later served on its board. Talbot's long career as an actor is recounted in a book by his youngest daughter, The New Yorker writer Margaret Talbot, entitled The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's Twentieth Century (Riverhead Books 2012).
Born Lisle Henderson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Talbot was reared in Brainard, Nebraska and graduated from high school in Omaha. He left home at 17, and began his career as a magician's assistant, becoming a leading actor in traveling tent shows in the American Midwest. He briefly established his own theater company in Memphis, Tennessee. He went to Hollywood in 1931, when the film industry began producing movies with sound and needed "actors who could talk". His screen test at Warner Bros. was watched and appreciated by studio production chief Darryl F. Zanuck and, even more so, by director William Wellman who immediately wanted to cast Talbot. Talbot became a contract player at Warners along with the likes of Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart.