Month: July 2017

filmnoirreport:

Happy birthday to actor Dan Duryea, born
Jan. 23, 1907 in White Plains,
NY.  Duryea graduated from Cornell University
in 1928, where he studied English and drama, and was president of the drama
society.  Although he loved acting, he
decided to pursue a more practical line of work and took a job as an
advertising executive.  But after six
years, the stressful pace of the business world caused Duryea to have a mild
heart attack, so he quit his job and devoted himself to acting.  He made his Broadway debut in 1935 as a bit
player and quickly progressed to playing lead roles, culminating with a
national tour in The Little Foxes.  When MGM produced the film version in 1940,
Duryea reprised his stage role on film and never looked back.  In Hollywood,
he became a popular character actor and also had some lead roles.  Duryea developed a unique screen persona that
was ideally suited for playing snide, slick-haired, mean-spirited,
wise-cracking villains – characters that audiences loved to hate.  He was a consistent fixture in classic film
noir, appearing in more than 15 noir films: Ministry
of Fear (1944), The Woman in the
Window (1944), The Great Flamarion
(1945), Scarlet Street (1945), Black Angel (1946), Larceny (1948), Criss Cross
(1949), Manhandled (1949), Too Late for Tears (1949), Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949), The Underworld Story (1950), One Way Street (1950), World for Ransom (1954), Storm Fear (1955), Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (1957), and The Burglar (1957).  Duryea
also appeared in many westerns, among them: Winchester 73 (1950), Silver Lode (1954), Ride
Clear of Diablo (1954), and The
Marauders (1955).  In 1952, Duryea
starred in the television series China
Smith (1952-56) and The New Adventures
of China Smith (1953-54).  Duryea
appeared in many television shows in the early 1960s, including Rawhide, Route 66, The Alfred
Hitchcock Hour, and The Twilight Zone.  He continued working in film and television
up until his death in 1968 of cancer.  He
was 61.