William Bendix

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William Bendix (January 14, 1906 – December 14, 1964) was an American film, radio, and television actor who often played gritty, blue-collar characters.

He is best remembered in films for his role in The Babe Ruth Story.

In both the radio and television versions of The Life of Riley, he portrayed Chester A. Riley, the clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker.

He was nominated for the Best Support Actor for Wake Island (1942) by the Academy Awards.

Early life

Bendix was born in Manhattan and was named William after his German paternal grandfather, Oscar and Hilda (Carnell) Bendix's only child. Max Bendix, his uncle, was composer, conductor, and violinist. Bendix was a batboy for the New York Yankees in the early 1920s and said he saw Babe Ruth hit more than 100 home runs at Yankee Stadium. However, he was fired after fulfilling Ruth's request for a large order of hot dogs and soda prior to a game, which resulted in Ruth's being unable to participate that day. He worked as a grocer until the Great Depression.

Personal life

On October 22, 1927, Bendix married Theresa Stefanotti, a childhood friend. They were married until his death 37 years later in 1964. Lorraine was the mother of the couple and Stephanie was adopted. Bendix died in Los Angeles at the age of 58 in 1964 as a result of chronic stomach pains that culminated in hunger and finally lobar pneumonia. He was laid to rest at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, Los Angeles, by Rafael Chapman.

Bendix, a Republican, was a republic. He attended a major rally in Los Angeles organized by David O. Selznick in favor of the Dewey-Bricker ticket, as well as California Governor Earl Warren.

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Career

Bendix began his acting career at the age of 30 in the New Jersey Federal Theatre Project. In 1942, he made his film debut. He appeared in scores of Hollywood films, often as a warm-hearted gangster, investigator, or serviceman. He began acting in films noir, including a supporting role in The Glass Key (1942), which featured Brian Donlevy, Alan Ladd, and Veronica Lake in the lead. After appearing in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944) as Gus, a wounded American sailor who is dying, he quickly gained attention. He was the top-billed lead in The Hairy Ape (1944), based on Eugene O'Neill's play and also starring Susan Hayward and Dorothy Comingore.

Bendix' other film roles include his portrayal of Babe Ruth in The Babe Ruth Story (1948), a film in which he was named one of the worst sports biopics in film history, and Sir Sagramore's appearance in "Busy Doing Nothing," in which he appeared in the trio. In William Saroyan's The Time of Your Life (1948), starring James Cagney, he appeared Nick the bartender. Bendix had appeared in the stage version but not in the role of Officer Krupp (a film starring Broderick Crawford). He was cast in The Blue Dahlia (1946), appearing alongside Ladd and Lake for the second time.

Bendix appeared in a film version of his radio show The Life of Riley (1949).

Bendix' appearance in the Hal Roach-produced film The McGuerins from Brooklyn (1942), playing a strong blue-collar man, led to his best-recalled role. Bendix was seen by producer and designer Irving Brecher as the ultimate personification of Chester A. Riley, giving the show a second chance to a show whose audition ended after the sponsor hired Groucho Marx for the lead. Bendix's Life of Riley was a radio hit from 1944 to 1951, with Bendix stumbling, bumbling, and skating almost on thin ice, putting his otherwise loving wife and children's lives in jeopardy.

The show began as a planned Groucho Marx radio series called The Flotsam Family, but the sponsor balked at what would have been essentially a head-of-household position for the comedian. In The McGuerins from Brooklyn, then entrepreneur and producer Irving Brecher recognized Bendix as the taxicab company owner Tim McGuerin. "He was a Brooklyn guy, and there was something about him," Brecher said. This guy could play it, I suppose. He'd made a few films, including Lifeboat, but no one knew him. So I took The Flotsam Family script and made it a Brooklyn family, took out the flippancies and made it more meat-and-potatoes, and thought of a new title, The Life of Riley. Bendix's execution and the twist he added on his lines made it work." Bendix was depicted by the revised script as blundering Chester A. Riley, a wing riveter at California's fictional Cunningham Aircraft plant. "What a revoltin' growth this is," he says during his frequent exclamation of indignation. She was one of the catch-ups of the 1940s. It was later revived by Benjamin J. Grimm of the Fantastic Four.

Bendix was unable to appear on television due to a stipulation of film work. Jackie Gleason took over the role, and it aired in a single season from October 1949. Despite winning an Emmy award, the show was postponed in large part because Gleason was less convincing as Riley, considering Bendix was already familiar with the role on radio. Bendix first appeared on television in 1953, and this time the film was a hit. Riley's second television version of The Life of Riley ran from 1953 to 1958, long enough for Riley to become a grandfather.

Bendix was said to be a descendant of nineteenth-century composer Felix Mendelsohn, according to Ralph Edwards' show "This Is Your Life."

Bendix was the lead in Rod Serling's "The Time Element" (1958), a time-travel adventure tale about a man who travels back to 1941 and unsuccessfully warns anyone in Honolulu about the imminent attack on Pearl Harbor; the program's success opened the doors for Serling's later series The Twilight Zone. Bendix appeared on The Ford Show (also 1958), as well as Tennessee Ernie Ford. He appeared on October 1, 1959, the fourth-season premiere of the series, in which he and Tennessee Ernie performed a comedy skit about a safari.

Bendix played the captain of a sailing container ship that shanghaied Major Adams ("Ward Bond"), Bill Hawks (Terry Wilson), and Charlie Wooster (Frank McGrath), causing them to work on his ship in NBC's Wagon Train ("Around the Horn," 1958). Bendix appeared on NBC's color television of The Steve Allen Plymouth Show with Jack Kerouac on November 16, 1959. The broadcast's color videotape has survived. Bendix appeared in all 17 episodes of the NBC western series Overland Trail (1960) as Frederick Thomas "Fred" Kelly, the overland Stage Company's crusty superintendent. Doug McClure, later Trampas on The Virginian, co-starred as his youthful understudy, Frank "Flip" Flippen. He appeared in an episode of Mister Ed ("Pine Lake Lodge," 1961), when he appeared as a back door pilot for a Mister Ed project that was not picked up.

Bendix and Martha Raye's American situation comedy series in the fall of 1964 had been supposed to air on CBS, but the network decided not to air the show due to Bendix's shaky health. This action resulted in a lawsuit involving Bendix worth $2.658 million in May, with the actor claiming that the decision damaged his career and that he was in good health and that the actor met all of the requirements of the contract. The matter was ruled out of court. Bendix died of pneumonia complications on December 14, 1964.

Bendix saw the benefits of both film and stage work. "Films take a lot of pressure off a film – you can always reshoot a scene." You can be on stage with a role from performance to success, but on the stage, you can work with a character, build it from scratch to success."

He was both pragmatic and irresentious about his work as a professional. In an interview in 1960, he said, "I've had a long, diversified, joyful, eventful career." I don't hate anybody and I don't have any bitter thoughts. I started out without having any advantages, but I've been lucky and fruitful, and I've had fun."

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