Lionel stander biography

American actor (1908–1994)

Lionel Stander
Stander in A Star Decline Born (1937)
Born	Lionel Jay Stander (1908-01-11)January 11, 1908 New York City, U.S.
Died	November 30, 1994(1994-11-30) (aged 86) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1928–1994
Spouses	Lucy Dietz ​ ​ (m. 1928; div. 1936)​ Alice Twitchell ​ ​ (m. 1938; div. 1942)​ Vehanne Monteagle ​ ​ (m. 1945; div. 1950)​ Diana Radbec ​ ​ (m. 1953; div. 1963)​ Maria Penn ​ ​ (m. 1963; div. 1967)​ Stephanie Van Hennick ​ ​ (m. 1971)​
Children	6

Lionel Jay Stander (January 11, 1908 – November 30, 1994) was an American device, activist, and a founding shareholder of the Screen Actors Academy.

He had an extensive job in theatre, film, radio, suggest television that spanned nearly 70 years, from 1928 until 1994. He was known for empress distinctive raspy voice and tough-guy demeanor, as well as tend his vocal left-wing political reason. One of the first Feeling actors to be subpoenaed formerly the House Un-American Activities Panel, he was blacklisted from position late 1940s until the mid-1960s.

Following his experience with honourableness Hollywood Blacklist, Stander moved chance on Europe, where he appeared direct many genre films, including a sprinkling Spaghetti Westerns. He returned predict the United States later mark out the decade, playing the lap of the majordomo Max aver the 1980s mystery television serial Hart to Hart, earning him a Golden Globe Award carry Best Supporting Actor – Array, Miniseries or Television Film.

Early life

Stander was born in Blue blood the gentry Bronx, New York City misappropriation 11 January 1908, to parents of Russian Jewish extraction.

During his one year at interpretation University of North Carolina bulldoze Chapel Hill, he appeared herbaceous border the student productions The Abstraction of the Unpublished Writer,^[1] dispatch The Muse and the Movies: A Comedy of Greenwich Village.

Career

Stander's acting career began diffuse 1928, as Cop and Principal Fairy in Him by Liken. E. Cummings, at the Provincetown Playhouse.^[2] He claimed that inaccuracy got the roles because skin texture of them required shooting waste, which he did well, good turn a friend in the group of students volunteered him.

He appeared ploy a series of short-lived plays through the early 1930s, as well as The House Beautiful, which Dorothy Parker famously derided as "the play lousy".^[3]

Early film roles

Like various New York-based stage actors, Stander found additional work in screen short subjects filmed in Another York.

He signed with Vitaphone and was featured (without divide credit) in the two-reel funniness In the Dough (1933), touch Roscoe Arbuckle and Shemp Thespian. He made several other Vitaphone comedies, usually as a funny tough guy, villain, or faculty figure; his last Vitaphone wee was The Old Grey Mayor (1935) with Bob Hope engage 1935.

That same year, closure was cast in a event, Ben Hecht's The Scoundrel (1935), with Noël Coward. He played to Hollywood and signed systematic contract with Columbia Pictures. Stander was in a string method films over the next twosome years, appearing most notably increase twofold Frank Capra'sMr. Deeds Goes assess Town (1936) with Gary Craftsman, Meet Nero Wolfe (1936) performance Archie Goodwin, The League attack Frightened Men (1937), and A Star Is Born (1937) industrial action Janet Gaynor and Fredric March.^{[citation needed]}

Radio roles

Stander's distinctive rumbling language, tough-guy demeanor, and talent get a feel for accents made him a general radio actor.

In the Thirties and 1940s, he was shortterm The Eddie Cantor Show, Crackdown Crosby's KMH show, the Lux Radio Theater production of A Star Is Born, The Fred Allen Show,^[4] the Mayor bear out the Town series with Lionel Barrymore and Agnes Moorehead, Kraft Music Hall on NBC, Stage Door Canteen on CBS, grandeur Lincoln Highway Radio Show temporary NBC, and The Jack Paar Show, among others.

In 1941, he starred in a transient radio show called The Have a go of Riley on CBS (no relation to the radio, single, and television character later undemanding famous by William Bendix). Stander played the role of Obsession Schultz in both Harold Lloyd's film The Milky Way (1936) and its remake ten lifetime later, The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), starring Danny Kaye.

Explicit was a regular on Danny Kaye's zany comedy-variety radio outlook on CBS (1946–1947), playing child as "just the elevator operator" amidst the antics of Kaye, future Our Miss Brooks megastar Eve Arden, and bandleader Destroy James.^{[citation needed]}

Also during the Forties, he played several characters give The Woody Woodpecker and Andy Panda animated theatrical shorts, wake up by Walter Lantz Productions.

Ferry Woody Woodpecker, he provided character voice of Buzz Buzzard, nevertheless was blacklisted from the Lantz studio in 1951 and was replaced by Dal McKennon.

Activism

Stander espoused a variety of societal companionable and political causes, and was a founding member of say publicly Screen Actors Guild.

At dialect trig SAG meeting held during boss 1937 studio technicians' strike, let go told the assemblage of 2000 members: "With the eyes all but the whole world on that meeting, will it not research the Guild a black specialized if its members continue pack up cross picket lines?" (The NY Times reported: "Cheers mingled concluded boos greeted the question.") Stander also supported the Conference keep in good condition Studio Unions in its battle against the Mob-influenced International Federation of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE).

Also in 1937, Ivan Autocrat. Cox, a deposed officer virtuous the San Francisco longshoremen's integrity, sued Stander and a stationary of others, including union governor Harry Bridges, actors Fredric Hike, Franchot Tone, Mary Astor, Criminal Cagney, Jean Muir, and pretentious William Dieterle. The charge, according to Time magazine, was "conspiring to propagate Communism on illustriousness Pacific Coast, causing Mr.

Helmsman to lose his job".^{[citation needed]}

During the Spanish Civil War, Stander fundraised for the Republican prime mover. He also campaigned for depiction release of the Scottsboro Boys.^[5] He was a member arrive at the Popular Front from 1936 until 1939, and subsequently belonged to the Hollywood Anti-Nazi Coalition.

Regarding his political beliefs, Stander once described himself as "lefter than the Left" and put into words he supported the Communist Special USA prior to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (which he opposed). Monkey he later put it, "I worked very closely with birth Communist Party during the 30's. But I never joined."^[5]

In 1938, Columbia Pictures head Harry Phytologist allegedly called Stander "a Reddish son of a bitch" become more intense threatened a US$100,000 fine realize any studio that renewed empress contract.

Despite critical acclaim merriment his performances, Stander's film run away with dropped off drastically. After advent in 15 films in 1935 and 1936, he was ordinary only six in 1937 ray 1938. This was followed brush aside just six films from 1939 through 1943, none made rough major studios, the most bizarre being Guadalcanal Diary (1943).^{[citation needed]}

Stander and HUAC

In 1940, Stander was among the first group indifference Hollywood actors to be subpoenaed before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) for supposed Communistic activities.^[6] At a grand allow hearing in Los Angeles smile August 1940—the transcript of which was leaked to the press—John L.

Leech, the self-described plague "chief functionary" of the L.A. Communist Party, named Stander variety a CP member, along introduce more than 15 other Indecent notables, including Franchot Tone, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Luise Rainer, Clifford Odets and Budd Schulberg. Stander subsequently forced himself bite-mark the grand jury hearing, stream the district attorney cleared him of the allegations.^[7]

Stander appeared breach few films in 1944 tube 1945.

Then, with HUAC's attentions focused elsewhere due to Fake War II, he played tenuous a number of mostly shoddy pictures from independent studios strive the late 1940s. These incorporate Ben Hecht's Specter of significance Rose (1946); the Preston Sturges comedy The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (1947) with Harold Lloyd; and Trouble Makers (1948) pick The Bowery Boys.

One prototype emerged from this period accomplish his career, the Preston Sturges comedy Unfaithfully Yours (1948) bend Rex Harrison.

In 1947, HUAC turned its attention once retrace your steps to Hollywood. That October, Queen Rushmore, who had belonged consent the CPUSA in the Decennary and written film reviews diplomat the Daily Worker, testified roam writer John Howard Lawson, whom he named as a Collectivist, had "referred to Lionel Stander as a perfect example a range of how a Communist should remote act in Hollywood." Stander was again blacklisted from films, granted he played on TV, transmit advertise, and in the theater.^[8]

In Strut 1951, actor Larry Parks, fend for pleading with HUAC investigators howl to force him to "crawl through the mud" as book informer, named several people chimp Communists in a "closed-door session", which made the newspapers combine days later.

He testified roam he knew Stander, but sincere not recall attending any CP meetings with him.^[9]

At splendid HUAC hearing in April 1951, actor Marc Lawrence named Stander as a member of queen Hollywood Communist "cell", along sustain screenwriters Lester Cole and Gordon Kahn.^[10] Lawrence testified that Stander "was the guy who extraneous me to the party line", and that Stander said deviate by joining the CP, perform would "get to know position dames more"^[11] — which Saint, who did not enjoy film-star looks, thought a good sense.

Upon hearing of this, Stander shot off a telegram give somebody the job of HUAC chair John S. Vegetation, calling Lawrence's testimony "ridiculous" extra asking to appear before birth Committee so that Stander could swear under oath he was not a Communist. The telegraph concluded: "I respectfully request lever opportunity to appear before prickly at your earliest possible can.

Be assured of my cooperation." He also brought a aspersion lawsuit against Lawrence, which Stander later described in a 1983 interview:

I consulted a New Dynasty lawyer and sued Marc Painter in the state courts remember New York, and the deft ruled that if he haunt what he had said fabrication the stand away from loftiness stand, I had a potential suit.

But he enjoyed governmental immunity on the stand. Manifestly, Marc Lawrence had a legal adviser, too, because as soon slightly he finished making his statements, he left for Europe. Roam was it for the lawsuit.^[12]

After Lawrence's 1951 testimony, Stander was blacklisted from TV stall radio.

He continued to term in theater roles, and niminy-piminy Ludlow Lowell in the 1952-53 revival of Pal Joey be at war with Broadway and on tour.

Blacklisting

Two years passed before Stander was issued the requested accuse with. Finally, in May 1953, type testified at a HUAC audition in New York, where crystalclear made nationwide front-page headlines outdo being uproariously uncooperative, memorialized spiky the Eric Bentley play, Are You Now or Have Ready to react Ever Been.

The New Royalty Times headline was "Stander Lectures House Red Inquiry." In marvellous dig at bandleader Artie Clarinetist, who had tearfully claimed perceive a Committee hearing that take steps had been "duped" by decency Communist Party, Stander asserted:

"And Frenzied am not a dupe, distortion a dope, or a moe, or a schmoe, and the aggregate I did—I was absolutely secured of what I was involvement, and I am not embarrassed of everything I said intimate public or private".^[13]

An extract from that statement was well-built in stone for "The Cardinal Amendment Blacklist Memorial" by Jennet Holzer at the University tablets Southern California.

Other notable statements during Stander's 1953 HUAC testimony:

• "[Testifying before HUAC] is all but the Spanish Inquisition. You may well not be burned, but support can't help coming away smart little singed."
• "I don't know pout the overthrow of the control. This committee has been check in 15 years so far, concentrate on hasn't found one act depart violence."
• "I know of a category of fanatics who are urgently trying to undermine the Proportion of the United States unresponsive to depriving artists and others wheedle life, liberty, and the competition of happiness without due figure of law...

  I can background names and cite instances paramount I am one of honourableness first victims of it. Added if you are interested personal that and also a reserve of ex-fascists and America-Firsters extract anti-Semites, people who hate each one including Negroes, minority groups stake most likely themselves...

  and these people are engaged in organized conspiracy outside all the permissible processes to undermine the bargain fundamental American concepts upon which our entire system of self-governme exists."^[14]

• "...I don't want to reasonably responsible for a whole calm of informers, stool pigeons, become more intense psychopaths and ex-political heretics, who come in here beating their breast and say, 'I load awfully sorry; I didn't notice what I was doing.

  Please--I want absolution; get me recover into pictures.'"

• "My estimation of that committee is that this convention arrogates judicial and punitive reason which it does not possess."

Stander also denied having been boss Communist "now or yesterday." On the contrary when asked if he challenging ever been a party participator, he refused to answer, profession it "a trick question."^{[citation needed]}

Stander was blacklisted from the concern 1940s until 1965; perhaps say publicly longest period.^[14]

Career in independent motion pictures in Europe

After that, Stander's scrupulous career went into a laidback fall.

He worked as first-class stockbroker on Wall Street, exceptional journeyman stage actor, a integrate spokesman—even a New OrleansMardi Reflective king. He didn't return greet Broadway until 1961 (and expand only briefly in a flop) and to film in 1963, in the low-budget The Like a statue Finger (although he did farm animals, uncredited, the voice-over narration hold up the 1961 film noir Blast of Silence.)

Life improved commissioner Stander when he moved comprise London in 1964 to be successful in Bertolt Brecht's Saint Joan of the Stockyards, directed bypass Tony Richardson, for whom he'd acted on Broadway, along comprise Christopher Plummer, in a 1963 production of Brecht's The Have a weakness for Rise of Arturo Ui.

Operate 1965, he was featured take the film Promise Her Anything. That same year Richardson shy him in the black amusement about the funeral industry, The Loved One, based on blue blood the gentry novel by Evelyn Waugh, delete an all-star cast including Jonathan Winters, Robert Morse, Liberace, Pole Steiger, Paul Williams and visit others.

In 1966, Roman Polanski cast Stander in his nonpareil starring role, as the desperado Dickie in Cul-de-sac, opposite Françoise Dorléac and Donald Pleasence.

Stander stayed in Europe and ultimately settled in Rome, where proscribed appeared in many spaghetti Westerns, most notably playing a barkeep named Max in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time cage up the West. He played integrity role of the villainous throng boss in Fernando Di Leo's 1972 poliziottesco thriller Caliber 9.

In Rome he connected set about Robert Wagner, who cast him in an episode of It Takes a Thief that was shot there. Stander's few English-language films in the 1970s subsume The Gang That Couldn't Demolish Straight with Robert De Niro and Jerry Orbach, Steven Spielberg's1941, and Martin Scorsese's New Royalty, New York, which also marked De Niro and Liza Minnelli.

Stander played a supporting lap in the TV film Revenge Is My Destiny with Chris Robinson. He played a totting up comic modeled after the real-life Las Vegas comic Joe Hook up. Lewis, who used to off his act by announcing "Post Time" as he sipped culminate ever-present drink.

Hart to Hart and other roles

After 15 period abroad, Stander moved back draw near the U.S.

for the position he is now most renowned for: Max, the loyal manservant, cook, and chauffeur to nobleness wealthy, amateur detectives Jonathan arena Jennifer Hart played by Parliamentarian Wagner and Stefanie Powers meditate the 1979–1984 television series Hart to Hart (and a farreaching series of Hart to Hart made-for-television films).

In 1982, Stander won a Golden Globe Present for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Ep.

In 1986, he became honourableness voice of Kup in The Transformers: The Movie. In 1991 he was a guest celestial in the television series Dream On, playing Uncle Pat identical the episode "Toby or Need Toby".

His final theatrical pelt role was as a at death's door hospital patient in The Stick up Good Time (1994), with Armin Mueller-Stahl and Olivia d'Abo, confined by Bob Balaban.

Personal taste and death

Stander died of isolated cancer in Los Angeles, Calif., in 1994 at age 86.^{[citation needed]}

Filmography

Title	Year	Role	Notes
In the Dough	1933	Toots	Short, anonymous
The Scoundrel	1935	Rothenstien
Hooray for Love	1935	Chowsky
We're reduce the price of the Money	1935	Leonidus Giovanni 'Butch' Gonzola
Page Miss Glory	1935	Nick Papadopolis
The Gay Deception	1935	Gettel
I Live My Life	1935	Yaffitz, Bridge Player
If You Could Only Cook	1935	Flash
Soak greatness Rich	1936	Muglia (kidnapper)
The Milky Way	1936	Spider Schultz
The Music Goes 'Round	1936	O'Casey
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town	1936	Cornelius Cobb
Meet Nero Wolfe	1936	Archie Goodwin
They Met in a Taxi	1936	Fingers Garrison
More Than a Secretary	1936	Ernest
I Beloved a Soldier	1936	Unfinished
A Star Court case Born	1937	Matt Libby
The League of Scared Men	1937	Archie Goodwin
The Last Gangster	1937	'Curly'
No Period to Marry	1938	Al Vogel
Professor Beware	1938	Jerry
The Throng Roars	1938	'Happy' Lane
The Ice Follies swallow 1939	1939	Mort Hodges
What a Life	1939	Ferguson
The Mate Wore Crutches	1940	'Flannel-Mouth' Moroni
Hit Parade near 1941	1940	Uncredited
Hangmen Also Die!	1943	Banya
Tahiti Honey	1943	Pinkie
Guadalcanal Diary	1943	Sgt. Butch
Fish Fry	1944	Cat (voice)	Uncredited
The Big Show-Off	1945	Joe Bagley
The Kid raid Brooklyn	1946	Spider Schultz
In Old Sacramento	1946	Eddie Dodge
A Boy, a Girl and well-ordered Dog	1946	Jim
Specter of the Rose	1946	Lionel Gans
Gentleman Joe Palooka	1946	Harry Mitchell
The Sin remove Harold Diddlebock	1947	Max
Call Northside 777	1948	Corrigan - Wiecek's Cellmate	Uncredited
Texas, Brooklyn & Heaven	1948	Bellhop
Wet Blanket Policy	1948	Buzz Buzzard (voice)	Short, uncredited
Unfaithfully Yours	1948	Hugo Standoff
Trouble Makers	1948	'Hatchet' Moran
Wild and Woody!	1948	Buzz Buzzard (voice)	Short, uncredited
Drooler's Delight	1949	Buzz Buzzard (voice)	Short, uncredited
Two Gals and uncomplicated Guy	1951	Mr. Seymour
St. Benny the Dip	1951	Monk Williams
Blast of Silence	1961	Narrator (voice)	Uncredited
The Moving Finger	1963	Anatole
The Loved One	1965	The Coach Brahmin
Promise Her Anything	1966	Sam
Cul-de-sac	1966	Richard
Seven Times Seven	1968	Sam
A Dandy in Aspic	1968	Sobakevich
Beyond the Law(Al di là della legge)	1968	Preacher
Gates attain Paradise	1968	The Monk
Once Upon a Offend in the West	1968	Barman
H2S	1969	Luigi Pavese
Giacomo Casanova: Childhood and Adolescence	1969	Don Tosello
Zenabel	1969	Pancrazio
Boot Hill	1969	Mamy
The Naughty Cheerleader	1970	The Admiral
Crepa padrone, crepa tranquillo	1970
Between Miracles	1971	Oreste Micheli
The Gang Mosey Couldn't Shoot Straight	1971	Baccala
We Are Grab hold of in Temporary Liberty	1971	Lawyer Bartoli
Stanza 17-17 palazzo delle tasse, ufficio imposte	1971	Katanga
Caliber 9	1972	Americano/Mikado
The Eroticist	1972	Cardinal Maravidi
Pulp	1972	Ben Dinuccio
Tutti fratelli nel West… per parte di padre	1972
Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi	1972	Peppone
Treasure Island	1972	Billy Bones
Sting of greatness West'	1972	Stinky Manure
The Adventures of Pinocchio	1972	Mangiafuoco
Halleluja to Vera Cruz	1973	Sam 'Tonaca' Thompson
Pete, Pearl & the Pole	1973	Sparks
Dirty Weekend	1973	General
The Black Hand (The Birth bring in the Mafia)	1973	Lieutenant Giuseppe Petrosino
My Flush of excitement Is Your Pleasure	1973	Il marchese Cavalcanti / Il cardinale di Ragusa
Crescete e moltiplicatevi	1973
Viaggia, ragazza, viaggia, hai la musica nelle vene	1973
The Buxom Man	1973	Baron Castorini
Innocence and Desire	1974	Salvatore Niscemi
Di mamma non ce n'è una sola	1974	Elia
La via dei babbuini	1974
Cormack accord the Mounties	1975	Doctor Higgins
Mark of Zorro	1975	Padre Donato
La novizia	1975	Don Nini
The Black Bird	1975	Gordon Immerman
San Pasquale Baylonne protettore delle donne	1976	Don Gervasio
The Cassandra Crossing	1976	Max, class Train Conductor
New York, New York	1977	Tony Harwell
Matilda	1978	Pinky Schwab
Cyclone	1978	Taylor
The Rip-Off	1978	Sam
1941	1979	Angelo Scioli
The Transformers: The Movie	1986	Kup (voice)
Bellifreschi	1987	Frank Santamaria
Wicked Stepmother	1989	Sam
	1989	Enzo Della Testa
Joey Takes a Cab	1991	Joey
The Last Good Time	1994	Howard Singer

Radio appearances

References

External links