Golden Age Actor dies and No-One at FL Notices!

[jake_fink]

Rip Bruce Bennet aka Herman Brix.

Obituary

Bruce Bennett


Athlete chosen by the author to play Tarzan


Ronald Bergan
Tuesday April 17, 2007
The Guardian


Bruce Bennett, who has died aged 100, was, as Herman Brix, an Olympic shot-putter and screen Tarzan, and, as Bennett, he was a stolid, lanky supporting actor of the 1940s and 1950s.
Born in Tacoma, Washington, Brix was the son of the owner of a couple of logging camps and the young Herman built up his physique carrying logs. Seven years after winning a shot put silver medal at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics , the 6ft 2in Brix was picked by Edgar Rice Burroughs to star in the author's The New Adventures of Tarzan.

But MGM, whose own Tarzan series starred another Olympic champ, swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, blocked it out of most theatres and the Brix film, while it was the only talking picture until the 1960s to present the character accurately as a sophisticated polyglot English nobleman, also featured pathetic battles with stuffed lions, and lifeless acting.
Brix had already appeared as Hercules, a college rower, in the Jimmy Durante comedy Student Tour (1935), and went on to become the hero of cherishable 12-episode kiddie matinee serials in which wooden acting hardly mattered. In Shadow of Chinatown (1936), Brix battled mad Oriental scientist Bela Lugosi; in Hawk of the Wilderness (1938), he was a "white savage" reared by natives who saves his people from a witchdoctor; in The Fighting Devil Dogs (1938) he was a marine tracking down a master criminal, and in Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939), he was a circus performer hunting a dangerous lunatic.

He then took acting lessons, changed his name to Bruce Bennett, signed with Columbia and returned to the screen in 1940 in a suit and hat. That year he made four B pictures - two with Boris Karloff, The Man With Nine Lives and Before I Hang - and as the lead in The Secret Seven, he was a former crook who forms a secret society of forensic scientists. Bennett was the handsome but dour hero of further competent B pictures, including three movies in which he tracked down Nazi agents: Underground Agent and Sabotage Squad (both 1942), and U-Boat Prisoner (1944). In 1945, Bennett moved on to Warner Bros where he appeared in more prestigious films in good supporting roles.

Bennett brought dignity to the role of Joan Crawford's first husband in Mildred Pierce (1945), restraining himself from punching his successor, no-good playboy Zachary Scott. There followed three pictures in which he lent dullish support to three of Warners other "sacred monsters": Bette Davis in A Stolen Life (1946), Ida Lupino in The Man I Love (1947) and Ann Sheridan in Nora Prentiss (1947). He was again lumbered with thankless "other man" roles in Dark Passage (1947), starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and in the western Silver River (1948) where Errol Flynn in love with Bennett's wife (Ann Sheridan), sends him out on a fatal mission. But Bennett was good as a doggerel-spouting robber in Raoul Walsh's Cheyenne (1947), and as the wandering Texan prospector in John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

Freelancing during the next decade, he was Joan Crawford's lawyer in Sudden Fear (1952), warning her against her husband Jack Palance, and, looking elegant in the saddle featured in westerns like The Younger Brothers (1949), The Last Outpost (1951), where he played Ronald Reagan's brother, and Three Violent People (1957).

Towards the end of his film career Bennett returned to the kind of stories that Herman Brix had handled in the 1930s. In The Alligator People (1959), he portrayed a doctor who operates on scaly-skinned Lon Chaney Jr, cutting off the reptile man's tail to get him into a pair of trousers. Bennett then co-wrote The Fiend of Dope Island (1961), starring as a dictatorial self-proclaimed baron of a Caribbean island, living off blackmarket arms and marijuana. After retiring from films, Bennett became a sales manager of a vending machine company, and went into real estate.

Bennett's wife died in 2000. He is survived by two children.

¬? Bruce Bennett (Herman Brix), film actor, born May 19 1906; died February 24 2007

 

[PADDY]

Well 'you' noticed

You noticed and brought it to our attention, so well done 'you!' There'll be a lot of people here glad that you picked up on this news.

It only takes 'one' of us (you in this case) to spot something of vintage interest/importance and post it on the Lounge for all to see.

Thanks for flagging that up Jake so that we can all be aware of any Golden Age star who has passed away.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I didn't notice because I'd never heard of him.

.

 

[Tomasso]

I don't read the obituaries, so if a death isn't front page/CNN material there's a good chance it'll get past me. That is, until I check the Fedora Lounge Gazette.

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

He was in Dark Passage and Mildred Pierce. A supporting actor in many films. Great actor. He will be missed.

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

I didn't notice because I'd never heard of him.

.

He was also in a little film called "Treasure of the Sierra Madre."

 

[dhermann1]

The name rang a vague bell, and the face rang a somewhat louder one. Hey, 100 years! RIP, Bruce Bennett! Thanks, Tony!

 

[jake_fink]

You noticed and brought it to our attention, so well done 'you!' There'll be a lot of people here glad that you picked up on this news.

It only takes 'one' of us (you in this case) to spot something of vintage interest/importance and post it on the Lounge for all to see.

Thanks for flagging that up Jake so that we can all be aware of any Golden Age star who has passed away.

But I didn't notice! They guy died in February and it slipped right past me. He was in one of my favourite serials - Daredevils of the Red Circle - and he was in Mildred Pierce, which was the subject of another thread and which led me to look up Mr. Bennet...

An olympian to boot!

 

[Sefton]

Thanks from me also for pointing that out. I've seen a few of those listed and will keep an eye out for some of the others.
Despite the fact that the author listed "The Alligator People" and forgot "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" I'd say that the obituary is one of the best I've read for any actor,B or otherwise. It seems as if the author might be something of a fan.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

When i saw it http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2318669.ece I didn't post it here because at the time I thought I was posting too many obituaries as the Independent's page is on my favorites list and I check it every day. May be that I'm morbid, I don't know.

 

[Sefton]

Don't worry about it. I had a run of obit postings for a while and nobody here started calling me "Dr.Death". Of course nobody here has seen what's in my basement...:whistling

 

[jake_fink]

Don't worry about it. I had a run of obit postings for a while and nobody here started calling me "Dr.Death". Of course nobody here has seen what's in my basement...:whistling

lol lol

 

[Feraud]

Bennett had a very distinct voice.

A movie not mentioned in the obituary is a little film called Mystery Street (1950).
This fine film is a very early version of the common forensic "whodunit" CSI:Everywhere programs that litter the television airwaves.
The film stars Riccardo Montalban as a police inspector who attempts to solve a murder with only a skeleton as evidence. Bennett play "Dr. MacAdoo".
Elsa Lanchester turns in a good performance as a busy body landlord.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I had just watched him in a delightful little "B" movie called I'm From Arkansas (1944) and then saw the news on another message board a few weeks ago. It always upsets me when someone from the Golden Era that I didn't even know was still alive dies.

 

[HadleyH]

All gone

Almost all the film stars from the the Golden Age are dead, aren't they? Only a few are still with us (golden age for me = stars who were already famous in the 1930s [huh] )

 

[Tomasso]

Almost all the film stars from the the Golden Age are dead, aren't they?

Pretty much, Had. Shirley Temple is pushing 80. [huh]

 

[HadleyH]

Pretty much, Had. Shirley Temple is pushing 80. [huh]

Wow Tomasso!!! Can you imagine little Shirley Temple at 80? Wow!!!!!!!

 

[Tomasso]

Oh, and Mickey Rooney.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Ach. 80 is nothing. My dad at 82 was more active than my in-laws at 49. (Shirley Temple married a distant relative of mine, so the story goes, so my family has consistently been interested in her.)

 

[Tomasso]

Ach. 80 is nothing.

:eusa_doh: Seriously, 80 is a lot of luck and a bit of good medical care.[huh]