Rex Reason

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Rex Reason (born in Berlin, Germany on November 30, 1928) is an American actor.

He is the brother of actor Rhodes Reason, who is two years younger. The two bore a strong resemblance and many may have mistakenly assumed they were twins.

Biography

Reason was raised in Los Angeles, attended Hoover High School in Glendale, California, and enlisted in the Army at age 17.

He began his show business career in 1948 at the Pasadena Playhouse, performing as a stage actor for three years before coming to the notice of Hollywood. In 1951 he was given a screen test at Columbia Pictures and was cast as the lead in a starring role in his first picture, a low-budget adventure drama titled Storm Over Tibet. Reason was under contract for two more years at Columbia until moving to Universal in mid-1953, after making a promising appearance in the sword-and-sandal epic Salome opposite Rita Hayworth.

A tall (6'2"), handsome, leading man with a distinctive baritone speaking voice, Reason appeared in several films and television shows throughout the 1950s and 1960s. He made two pictures at Universal Studios under the name "Bart Roberts" before demanding to be able to use his own name, which actually sounds like a Hollywood screen name.

Reason is perhaps best remembered for his role as stalwart, heroic scientist Dr. Cal Meacham in the 1955 Technicolor science fiction cult classic This Island Earth. Reason co-starred as sympathetic scientist Dr. Tom Morgan in the third--and final--installment of Universal International Pictures' successful Creature from the Black Lagoon horror film series in 1956's The Creature Walks Among Us. He also appeared opposite Clark Gable and Sidney Poitier in Band of Angels (WB,1957). He appeared in Badlands of Montana (1957) as an opponent of a corrupt Mayor played by John M. Pickard. In the story line, Pickard administers ten lashes with a whip to Reason's back.

Reason starred as newspapermen in two television series: (1) a syndicated western, Man Without a Gun (1957–1959), in the role of Adam MacLean, editor of the Yellowstone Sentinel newspaper in Dakota Territory, and (2) ABC's The Roaring Twenties (1960–1962), a crime drama rich in period music, in the role of Scott Norris, reporter for the fictitious New York Record.

He appeared in 1961 as a guest on an NBC interview program, Here's Hollywood, and guest-starred on a number of popular TV series, including 77 Sunset Strip, Perry Mason and Wagon Train.

Reason walked out on his film contract with Warner Brothers in the fall of 1961 when he was being considered for a starring role in the Frank Sinatra production of John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate. The film began as a WB project, but was completed as an independent film, and was released by United Artists in 1962. The role he was going to play went to Laurence Harvey instead.

After his film and television acting career ended, he worked as a real estate broker, and had a second career as a voiceover actor. Reason is retired and lives in Walnut, California, with his wife, Shirley.^[1]

References

• Rex Reason at the Internet Movie Database