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Lloyd Bridges

 
Who2 Biography: Lloyd Bridges, Actor
Lloyd Bridges
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  • Born: 15 January 1913
  • Birthplace: San Leandro, California
  • Died: 10 March 1998 (natural causes)
  • Best Known As: Mike Nelson on Sea Hunt

Baby boomers know Lloyd Bridges as Mike Nelson, the square-jawed frogman star of the undersea adventure series Sea Hunt. The show ran from 1958-1961 and then continued for years in reruns. In 1980 Bridges' career was resurrected when he played a goofy plane dispatcher in the 1980 satire Airplane! and its 1982 sequel Airplane II. He is the father of the actors Beau Bridges and Jeff Bridges.

Bridges was briefly blacklisted for political activism during the McCarthy era... In the 1990s he appeared in two more aerial parodies, Hot Shots! (1991) and Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993).

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Actor: Lloyd Bridges
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  • Born: Jan 15, 1913 in San Leandro, California
  • Died: Mar 10, 1998 in Los Angeles, California
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '40s-'50s, '70s-'90s
  • Major Genres: Drama, Comedy
  • Career Highlights: High Noon, Home of the Brave, Cousins
  • First Major Screen Credit: The Royal Mounted Patrol (1941)

Biography

Working from the ground up in stock companies, Lloyd Bridges was a member of the progressive Actors Lab company in the mid 1930s. He made his Broadway debut toward the end of that decade in a production of Othello. Signed by Columbia in 1941, Bridges appeared in everything the studio assigned him, from Three Stooges 2-reel comedies to such "A" pictures as Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Talk of the Town (1942), and Sahara (1943). He began freelancing in 1945, accepting the prescient role of a deep-sea diver in 1948's 16 Fathoms Deep, among other films. The most memorable of his '50s assignments was the leading role in the cult science-fiction programmer Rocketship X-M (1950) and the part of the look-out-for-number-one deputy in High Noon (1952).

Thanks to his earlier involvement in the Actors Lab and his admission at the HUAC hearings that he'd once flirted with communism, Bridges was "graylisted" during the mid-'50s, able to find work only in lesser pictures and TV shows. He was rescued by producer Ivan Tors, who cast Bridges as diver-for-hire Mike Nelson in the TV series Sea Hunt. Filmed between 1957 and 1961, Sea Hunt was the most popular syndicated program of the era, turning Bridges into a millionaire. Alas, neither of his subsequent series of the '60s, The Lloyd Bridges Show (1962) and The Loner (1965), survived their first seasons. Undaunted, Bridges continued working into the '90s, displaying a hitherto untapped flair for zany comedy in such films as Airplane! (1980), Joe vs. the Volcano (1990), and the two Hot Shots films. Bridges was the father of actors Beau Bridges and Jeff Bridges. A committed environmentalist, he was involved in several organizations including the American Oceans Campaign and Heal the Bay, a Los Angeles-based group. Bridges died of natural causes on March 10, 1998. Shortly before his passing, he had completed work on two films, Jane Austen's Mafia and Meeting Daddy; in the latter film, Bridges co-starred with his eldest son Beau. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Filmography: Lloyd Bridges
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From Russia to Hollywood: The 100-Year Odyssey of Chekhov and Shdanoff

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Mafia!

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Meeting Daddy

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Peter and the Wolf

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Blown Away

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Hot Shots! Part Deux

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Cinderella: Frozen in Time

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Devlin

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Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

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Hot Shots!

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Help Save Planet Earth: Easy Ways to Make a Difference

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Joe Versus the Volcano

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Cousins

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Winter People

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Tucker: The Man and His Dream

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The Wild Pair

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Dress Gray

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Weekend Warriors

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North and South, Book II

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Loving

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George Washington

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Alice in Wonderland

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A Case of Libel

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Grace Kelly

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Airplane II: The Sequel

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The Blue and the Gray

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East of Eden

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Airplane!

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Bear Island

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Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack

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The Great Wallendas

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The 5th Musketeer

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Roots

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The Happy Ending

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Silent Night, Lonely Night

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Around the World under the Sea

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The Goddess

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The Rainmaker

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Apache Woman

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High Noon

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The Plymouth Adventure

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Rocketship X-M

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The White Tower

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Home of the Brave

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Moonrise

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Ramrod

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Unconquered

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Abilene Town

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Canyon Passage

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A Walk in the Sun

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The Master Race

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The Heat's On

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Sahara

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The Commandos Strike at Dawn

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The Talk of the Town

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Here Comes Mr. Jordan

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Wikipedia: Lloyd Bridges
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Lloyd Bridges

Bridges in 1989
Born Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Jr.
January 15, 1913(1913-01-15)
San Leandro, California
Died March 10, 1998 (aged 85)
Los Angeles, California
Spouse(s) Dorothy Simpson (1938–1998) (his death)

Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Jr. (January 15, 1913 – March 10, 1998) was an American actor. Bridges starred in television series, and appeared in more than 150 films.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Bridges was born in San Leandro, California, the son of Harriet Evelyn (née Brown) and Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Sr., who was involved in the California hotel business and once owned a movie theater. Bridges graduated from Petaluma High School in 1931. He studied political science at UCLA, where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter. He met his future wife there, Dorothy Bridges (née Simpson); they married in 1938 in New York City.[1]

Career

Bridges made his Broadway debut in 1939 in a production of Shakespeare's Othello. In 1941, he joined the stock company at Columbia Pictures, where he played small roles in features and short subjects. (In Here Comes Mr. Jordan Bridges is the clerk assisting Claude Rains in the "heaven" scene.) He left Columbia to enlist in the U.S. Coast Guard. Following World War II, he returned to film acting. He was blacklisted briefly in the 1950s after he admitted to the House Un-American Activities Committee that he had once been a member of the Actors' Lab, a group with links to the Communist Party. He resumed working after being cleared by the FBI, finding his greatest success in television.

Bridges gained wide recognition as Mike Nelson, the main character in the television series Sea Hunt, created by Ivan Tors, which ran in syndication from 1958-1961. Following that success, he starred in the eponymous CBS anthology The Lloyd Bridges Show (1962-1963, produced by Aaron Spelling), which included appearances by his sons Beau and Jeff. Producer Gene Roddenberry, who worked with Bridges on "Sea Hunt", reportedly offered Bridges the role of Captain Kirk on Star Trek before the part went to William Shatner. Additionally, he was a regular cast member in the Rod Serling western series The Loner (which lasted one season from 1965 to 1966), and in the two NBC failures San Francisco International Airport (1970/71) and Joe Forrester (1975-76). Later, he appeared in Paper Dolls (1984) and Capital News (1990), both for ABC, and again with Harts of the West (1993-1994), this time for CBS, a comedy/western set on a dude ranch in Nevada. Son Beau Bridges co-starred, along with Harley Jane Kozak as Beau's wife, Alison Hart, and Sean Murray as the oldest Hart son, Zane Grey Hart.

Bridges played significant roles in several mini-series, including Roots, How the West Was Won, The Blue and the Gray and Battlestar Galactica . For more than forty-five years, Bridges was a frequent guest star on television series. He earned two Emmy Award nominations four decades apart. The first came in 1957 for an episode of The Alcoa Hour. Then he was nominated again in 1998 for his role as Izzy Mandelbaum on Seinfeld.

He started as a contract performer for Columbia Pictures, appearing in classics such as High Noon, Little Big Horn, and Sahara. By the end of his career, he was a staple of parody films such as Airplane!, Hot Shots!, and Jane Austen's Mafia!. He acted in the role of "The President" in the movie Hot Shots! Part Deux.

Personal life

Lloyd Bridges and his son Beau.

A world federalist, Bridges once said, “The devastation caused by war and the pollution of our environment knows no boundaries. Only an effective world government could provide sufficient law and have the power to control these destructive forces".[2] He was also involved in several organizations, including the American Oceans Campaign and Heal the Bay, a Los Angeles-based group.

Bridges died of natural causes at the age of eighty-five. His ashes were given to his family. He was married to Dorothy Bridges (née Simpson) (1915 - 2009), from 1938 until his death. They had four children: Lloyd Vernet "Beau", Garrett Myles, Jeffrey Leon, and Lucinda Louise. His son, Garrett, died of sudden infant death syndrome on August 3, 1948. Jordan Bridges is a grandson of Lloyd Bridges.

An episode of Seinfeld ("The Burning") was dedicated to the memory of Lloyd Bridges. He had played the character of Izzy Mandelbaum in the episodes "The English Patient" and "The Blood". Bridges's last film, Jane Austen's Mafia!, was dedicated to him.

Filmography

Features

  • Freshman Love (1936)
  • Dancing Feet (1936)
  • Lost Horizon (1937)
  • The Lone Wolf Takes a Chance (1941)
  • They Dare Not Love (1941)
  • The Medico of Painted Springs (1941)
  • The Son of Davy Crockett (1941)
  • Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
  • Our Wife (1941)
  • Harmon of Michigan (1941)
  • Two Latins from Manhattan (1941)
  • You Belong to Me (1941)
  • Three Girls About Town (1941)
  • The Royal Mounted Patrol (1941)
  • Sing for Your Supper (1941)
  • Honolulu Lu (1941)
  • Harvard, Here I Come! (1941)
  • West of Tombstone (1942)
  • Blondie Goes to College (1942)
  • Cadets on Parade (1942)
  • Shut My Big Mouth (1942)
  • Canal Zone (1942)
  • Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1942)
  • North of the Rockies (1942)
  • Alias Boston Blackie (1942)
  • The Wife Takes a Flyer (1942)
  • Sweetheart of the Fleet (1942)
  • Riders of the Northland (1942)
  • Flight Lieutenant (1942)
  • Atlantic Convoy (1942)
  • The Talk of the Town (1942)
  • A Man's World (1942)
  • The Spirit of Stanford (1942)
  • The Daring Young Man (1942)
  • Boston Blackie Goes Hollywood (1942)
  • Pardon My Gun (1942)
  • Underground Agent (1942)
  • Counter-Espionage (1942) (uncredited) (waiter)
  • Commandos Strike at Dawn (1943)
  • City Without Men (1943)
  • One Dangerous Night (1943)
  • Destroyer (1943)
  • Passport to Suez (1943)
  • Hail to the Rangers (1943)
  • Sahara (1943)
  • The Heat's On (1943)
  • There's Something About a Soldier (1943)
  • Crime Doctor's Strangest Case (1943)
  • Once Upon a Time (1944)
  • She's a Soldier Too (1944)
  • Louisiana Hayride (1944)
  • The Master Race (1944)
  • Saddle Leather Law (1944)
  • Secret Agent X-9 (1945)
  • Strange Confession (1945)
  • A Walk in the Sun (1945)
  • Abilene Town (1946)
  • Miss Susie Sagle's (1946)
  • Canyon Passage (1946)
  • Ramrod (1947)

Short subjects

  • The Great Glover (1942)
  • They Stooge to Conga (1943)
  • A Rookie's Cookie (1943)
  • His Wedding Scare (1943)
  • Mr. Whitney Had a Notion (1949)
  • My Daddy Can Lick Your Daddy (1962)
  • The World of Inner Space (1966)
  • I Am Joe's Heart (1987) (voice)

Television work

  • Sea Hunt (1957-1961)
  • The DuPont Show with June Allyson as Captain Anderson in "Death on the Temple Bay", BSD series finale (1961)
  • The Lloyd Bridges Show (1962-1963)
  • The Eleventh Hour with son Beau, "Cannibal Plants, They Eat You Alive" as Leonard McCarty (1964)
  • The Loner (1965-1966)
  • Mission: Impossible (1966) (Fakeout:Anastas Poltroni)
  • A Case of Libel (1968)
  • Lost Flight (1969)
  • Silent Night, Lonely Night (1969)
  • The Silent Gun (1969)
  • The Love War (1970)
  • San Francisco International Airport (1970-1971)
  • Do You Take This Stranger? (1971)
  • A Tattered Web (1971)
  • Deadly Dream (1971)
  • Water World (1972-1975) (narrator)
  • Haunts of the Very Rich (1972)
  • Trouble Comes to Town (1973)
  • Crime Club (1973)
  • Death Race (1973)
  • Benjamin Franklin (1974) (miniseries)
  • The Whirlwind (1974)
  • Stowaway to the Moon (1975)
  • Cop on the Beat (1975)
  • Joe Forrester (1975-1976)
  • Force of Evil (1977)
  • Roots (1977) (miniseries)
  • Telethon (1977)
  • Shimmering Light (1978)
  • GI Diary (1978)
  • Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series) (Commander Cain)

"East of Eden" (1981 miniseries) (Samuel Hamilton)

References

External links


 
 
Learn More
Mutual Respect (1977 Drama Film)
Biography: Lloyd Bridges (History Film)
Silent Night, Lonely Night (1969 Romance Film)

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