Jack Webb

At 62 years old, Jack Webb physical status not available right now. We will update Jack Webb's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

John Randolph Webb (April 2, 1920 – December 23, 1982) was an American actor, television producer, director, and screenwriter, who is most famous for his role as Sgt.

Joe Friday in the Dragnet franchise (which he created).

He was the founder of his own production company, Mark VII Limited.

Early life

Webb was born in Santa Monica, California, on April 2, 1920, son of Samuel Chester Webb and Margaret (née Smith) Webb. He grew up in the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles. His father left home before Webb was born, and Webb never knew him.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Webb lived in the parish of Our Lady of Loretto Church and attended Our Lady of Loretto Elementary School in Echo Park, where he served as an altar boy. He then attended Belmont High School, near downtown Los Angeles. Webb was elected student body president of his high school. He wrote to Belmont's student body in the 1938 edition of its yearbook, Campanile, "You who showed me the magnificent warmth of friendship which I know, and you know, I will carry with me forever." Webb attended St. John's University, Minnesota, where he studied art.

During World War II, Webb enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps, but he "washed out" of flight training. He later received a hardship discharge because he was the primary financial support for both his mother and grandmother.

Personal life

Webb's personal life was better defined by his love of jazz than his interest in police work. He had a collection of more than 6,000 jazz recordings. Webb's own recordings reached cult status, including his deadpan delivery of "Try A Little Tenderness". His lifelong interest in the cornet allowed him to move easily in the jazz culture, where he met singer and actress Julie London. They married in 1947 and had daughters Stacy and Lisa. They divorced in 1954. He was married three more times after that, to Dorothy Towne for two years beginning in 1955, to former Miss USA Jackie Loughery for six years beginning in 1958, and to his longtime associate, Opal Wright, for the last two years of his life.

Stacy Webb authorized and collaborated on a book, Just the Facts, Ma'am: The Authorized Biography of Jack Webb, Creator of Dragnet, Adam-12, and Emergency!, of which Daniel Moyer and Eugene Alvarez were the primary authors. It was published in 1999. Stacy did not live to see the publication of the book, having been killed in a collision with a California Highway Patrol car three years earlier.

Webb died of an apparent heart attack in the early morning hours of December 23, 1982, at age 62. He is interred at Sheltering Hills Plot 1999, Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, and was given a funeral with full Los Angeles police honors. On Webb's death, Chief Daryl Gates announced that badge number 714, which was used by Joe Friday in Dragnet, would be retired. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley ordered all flags lowered to half staff in Webb's honor for a day, and Webb was buried with a replica LAPD badge bearing the rank of sergeant and the number 714.

Source

Career

Following his release, he travelled to San Francisco, where a wartime absence of announcers culminated in a temporary appearance on ABC's KGO Radio. In 1946, the Jack Webb Show was a half-hour comedy with limited success on ABC radio. He had One Out of Seven On KGO, he had a one-man program in which he dramatized a news story from last week.

He had left comedy for drama by 1949 and appeared in Pat Novak, a KFRC radio show about a man who served as an unlicensed private investigator. Raymond Burr, a co-star on the programme, appeared on the show. Pat Novak was known for writing poetry that imitated Raymond Chandler's hardboiled style, including lines such as: "She drifted into the room like 98 pounds of warm smoke." Her voice was hot and sticky, like a torch full of marshmallows. In the "The Greatest Man" episode of Alan Ladd's "Box 13," which aired on January 2, 1949, Webb appeared as the principal antagonist of his protagonist character Dan Holliday.

Johnny Madero, Pier 23, Jeff Regan, Investigator, Murder, and Mr. Malone, Pete Kelly's Blues, and One Out of Seven were among Webb's radio shows. One Out of Seven was the most popular of the online discussion of racial discrimination.

Webb appeared in three films that would later become cult classics in 1950. He is William Holden's love interest Nancy Olson's fiancé in Sunset Boulevard (his appearance is lively and jovial, unlike his later deathpan style). In Marlon Brando's first film, The Men, he played a war veteran. He co-starred in the film noir Dark City with Harry Morgan, his future partner on the second Dragnet series.

In the 1957 film The D.I., with Don Dubbins as a callow Marine private, Webb's most well-known motion-picture expert at Parris Island was as the combat-hardened Marine Corps drill instructor. In much of Webb's later performances, his hard-nosed approach to this position, Drill Instructor Technical Sergeant James Moore, would be reflected. The D.I., on the other hand. It was a box-office disaster.

In National Lampoon's Animal House, Webb was offered to act as Vernon Wormer, Dean of Faber College, but he turned down the film because "the movie didn't make any sense"; John Vernon later played the role.

In the 1948 film He Walked by Night, based on Erwin Walker's real-life murder of a California Highway Patrolman, Webb appeared as a crime lab technician. The film was made in a semidocumentary style with technical assistance from Los Angeles Police Department Detective Sergeant Marty Wynn (LAPD). Webb was intrigued by Night's thinly veiled fictionalization of the 1946 Walker crime spree, which featured authentic representations of the modern police detective, including methods, gestures, and technical terms.

Sgt. was able to assist you in a slew of ways. Dragnet's legendary Los Angeles chief William H. Parker, and Marty Wynn appeared on NBC Radio in 1949 and 1957. NBC also picked up a television show, which aired episodes from 1952 to 1959. Webb played Sgt. Sgt. Joe Friday and Barton Yarborough co-starred. Ben Romero is a film director who studies the history of Ben Romero. Ben Alexander appeared on Yarborough's death and joined the cast.

Webb was a stickler for attention to detail. He believed viewers wanted "real" and wanted to share it with them. Webb had a lot of respect for those involved in law enforcement. In interviews, he often expressed frustration with the "ridiculous amount" of abuse to which police officers were exposed by the media and the public. The long hours, the low salary, and the high crime rate among LAPD detectives of the day, particularly in the LAPD, had by then developed a reputation for jettisoning officers who had been sick or injured in the line of duty; Lt. Colin Forbes, one of Erwin Walker's victims, was also impressed;

Webb said in announcing his design of Dragnet, he intended to do a service for the police by presenting them as low-key working-class heroes. Dragnet departed from earlier portrayals of the police in programs such as Jeff Regan and Pat Novak, which had often depicted them as violent and even corrupt. In 1952, Dragnet premiered a highly rated television show. Barton Yarborough died of a heart attack in 1951 after filming only two episodes (Sgt. ) Ed Jacobs (Officer Frank Smith) and Herbert Ellis (Officer Frank Smith) were temporarily in charge as partners. Ben Alexander, a veteran radio and film actor, took on the role of jovial, burly Officer Frank Smith. Alexander was well-known and remained a cast member until the show's cancellation in 1959. A full-length feature film version of the series was released in 1954, starring Webb, Alexander, and Richard Boone.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the tale you're about to see is true," George Fenneman's television version of Dragnet began: "Ladies and gentlemen, the tale you are about to see is true." The names have been changed to shield the innocent." "This is the city: Los Angeles, California," Webb would say. He'd make a historical or topical point, briefly outline his position, his partner, and even the general, and the episode's senior. The radio show had a similar opening, but Webb didn't have a unique LA-themed opening on Friday. The plot was then started by Webb by describing a typical day and then leading into the tale. "It was Wednesday, March 19th." It was cool in Los Angeles. "I was at a headquarters, writing opioids." Fenneman continued his opening story at the end of each show, but it was changed to read: "The tale you've just seen is accurate." The names were changed to shield the innocent.

Hal Gibney, the second announcer, regularly gave dates when and specific courtrooms were hosted for the defendants, announcing the trial verdicts after business breaks. Many criminals who were found not guilty at the end were also shown to have been sent to San Quentin's California State Prison. On sound stages, Webb often recreated entire floors of buildings, including the Los Angeles Police Headquarters and the Los Angeles Times-Examiner's floor.

Webb continued to appear in movies, chiefly as the best friend of William Holden's character in the 1950 Billy Wilder film Sunset Boulevard, according to script reader Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson). In comparison to Dragnet's straight-arrow image, Webb's herety played a brutal card sharp in Dark City and Morgan, a punch-drunk ex-fighter. Webb appeared in The Men, the 1950 film in which Marlon Brando made his film debut. Both actors were repulsive at a veterans' hospital, and they both appeared in a television drama. A woman who feigns romantic passion is embroiled of his life savings in a subpoena.

In 1951, Webb introduced Pete Kelly's Blues, a short-lived radio series in the hopes of bringing the music he adored to a larger audience. That performance inspired a 1955 film of the same name. A television version was made in 1959. Neither of them were very well-received. Pete Kelly, a cornet player, supplemented his income from playing in a nightclub band by working as a private investigator.

Source