William C. Redfield

Quotes:

"Facts have a cruel way of substituting themselves for fancies. There is nothing more remorseless, just as there is nothing more helpful, than truth."

• Born: Jan 26, 1927 in New York City, New York
• Died: 1976 in New York City
• Occupation: Actor
• Active: '50s-'70s
• Major Genres: Comedy, Drama
• Career Highlights: A New Leaf, Death Wish, Fantastic Voyage
• First Major Screen Credit: Conquest of Space (1955)

Biography

The son of a Manhattan orchestra conductor and a former Ziegfeld Follies girl, little Billy Redfield made his Broadway bow at age 9 in Swing Your Lady. Billy launched his radio career around the same time, and made his earliest movie appearance in 1939. As adult actor William Redfield, he was one of the original founders of the influential Actors Studio. While his film assignments of the 1950s and 1960s were unremarkable (as Captain Owens in 1966's Fantastic Voyage, for example, he played third fiddle to the special effects and Raquel Welch's diving suit), he remained a much-in-demand stage performer, and also proved a delightful raconteur on such TV chatfests as The Tonight Show. His reminiscences of the ups and downs of the acting profession were candid and perceptive without ever descending into maliciousness; many of his best anecdotes were self-deprecatory, notably his oft-repeated tale about being saddled in the 1956 film The Proud and the Profane with some of the worst movie dialogue ever written. An ever-busy TV performer, Redfield played the title role in the 1953 DuMont Network series Jimmy Hughes, Rookie Cop, and the following year was seen as Bobby Logan in The Marriage, the first live network series to be regularly broadcast in color. A talented writer, Redfield co-created the popular Wally Cox TV sitcom Mister Peepers, penned the stage play A View with Alarm, and published the 1965 volume Letters From an Actor, a candid memoir of his experiences while playing Guildenstern in the John Gielgud-directed 1964 staging of Hamlet, which starred Richard Burton. Not long after making his final film appearance as pensive mental patient Harding in the Oscar-winning One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 49-year-old William Redfield died of leukemia. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Buy this Movie	Death Wish Buy this Movie	For Pete's Sake Buy this Movie	The Hot Rock Buy this Movie
A New Leaf Buy this Movie	Fantastic Voyage Buy this Movie	Duel at Diablo Buy this Movie	Morituri Buy this Movie

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