William Eythe

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2008)

This article contains weasel words, vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. Such statements should be clarified or removed. (July 2009)

William Eythe (April 7, 1918 – January 26, 1957) was an American actor of film, radio, television and stage.

Born in Mars, Pennsylvania, a small town located about 25 miles from Pittsburgh, he was interested in acting from a young age. He attended Carnegie Tech University and studied acting and he began writing his own plays. "Lend An Ear," was one of his early plays and proved to be a theatrical success, later going on to have a Broadway run.

Eythe eventually moved to New York City, where he got various jobs performing in radio dramas and as an announcer for a local television station. During the Second World War, many of Hollywood's young male stars were away at war, and the film studios were forced to locate newer, younger actors who were below the age of military service, or those actors who were considered unfit for service due to medical conditions. Eythe, who had poor hearing, was one such actor, and he was spotted by a talent scout for 20th Century Fox films.

He was given a screen-test, and landed a role in the film The Ox-Bow Incident, which co-starred Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews. In 1943, he starred opposite Jennifer Jones in the Academy Award-winning film The Song of Bernadette. Eythe's star was rising fast in Hollywood, and he acted in films with such stars as Anne Baxter, Vincent Price, and Tallulah Bankhead.

The Hollywood publicity machine linked Eythe with many of the hottest young stars in Hollywood of the time, such as Anne Baxter, June Haver, Margaret Whiting, and others, but in real life Eythe was gay. Eythe was involved in a relationship with the actor Lon McCallister, a very popular young screen actor at the time.^[1] When a movie fan magazine published photos of Eythe and McCallister together, Darryl F. Zanuck, president of 20th Century Fox was furious, and as punishment sent Eythe to England to film the movie "Meet Me At Dawn". Eythe was badly miscast in this film as a duelist, which was the first film to be shot at the new 20th Century Fox Studios in England. When McCallister joined Eythe in London, and their photos together made the papers, Zanuck cancelled Eythe's contract at Fox.^{[citation needed]}

Eythe quickly married a young 20th Century Fox contract actress, Buff Cobb. The marriage was short lived and was not a happy one, and the couple would soon divorce. Later Cobb would sue Eythe for support payments.

Among his films are two directed by Otto Preminger, "Centennial Summer" and "A Royal Scandal," in which he co-stars very effectively with Tallulah Bankhead, Anne Baxter and Charles Coburn.

After being dropped from Fox, Eythe was able to do some work on television, and an occasional B-movie for Paramount or Columbia Pictures, but he primarily focused on theatre work. Eythe was influential in the career of Carol Channing, starring with her in the Broadway revue "Lend an Ear" in 1948. He also appeared in a starring (though non-singing) role in the 1950 Cole Porter musical "Out of this World," based on the Greek myth of Amphitryon, in which Jupiter (George Gaynes) comes to earth to bed a lovely young lady, taking the shape of her much-loved husband (Eythe).

Eythe died of hepatitis in Los Angeles in 1957 at the age of 38.

Movies include:

• The House on 92nd Street (1945)
• The Song of Bernadette (1943)
• The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)
• A Royal Scandal (1945)

References

External links

• William Eythe at the Internet Movie Database