Med Flory | |
---|---|
Birth name | Meredith Irwin Flory |
Born | August 27, 1926Indiana, USA |
Died | March 12, 2014 North Hollywood, California |
(aged 87)
Genres | Jazz |
Occupation(s) | Musician, actor, screenwriter |
Instruments | Saxophone |
Associated acts | Supersax |
Meredith Irwin Flory, known as Med Flory (August 27, 1926 – March 12, 2014), was an American jazz saxophonist and bandleader and television and film actor, originally from Logansport, Indiana.
Flory's mother was an organist, and encouraged Flory to take up clarinet as a child. During World War II Flory was an Army Air Force pilot, and after the war he got his college degree in philosophy from Indiana University.
He played in the bands of Claude Thornhill and Woody Herman in the early 1950s before forming his own ensemble in New York City. In 1955, he relocated to California and started a new group, which played at the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival. In the late 1950s, he played with Terry Gibbs, Art Pepper, and Herman again, playing both tenor and baritone saxophone. He was cast in twenty-nine episodes from 1956 to 1957 of the ABC variety show, The Ray Anthony Show.
In the 1960s, Flory was less active in music, working in television and film as an actor and screenwriter; his credits include Wagon Train, The Rifleman, Ripcord (twice), Rawhide (twice), Gunsmoke (twice), Perry Mason (twice), Maverick (twice), The Virginian (five episodes), Route 66 (twice), Bronco, Surfside 6, Mona McCluskey, Run Buddy Run, 77 Sunset Strip (three episodes), The Dakotas, Destry, Lawman (three episodes), Wendy and Me, It's a Man's World, The Monroes, Cimarron Strip, Daniel Boone (seven episodes), Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (twice), Bonanza (three episodes), Mannix, Lassie (ten episodes), How the West Was Won (three episodes), High Mountain Rangers (four episodes as Sheriff Mike McBride) and the films, The Night of the Grizzly with Clint Walker and The Nutty Professor with Jerry Lewis.