Lyle Talbot

Lyle Talbot, who appeared in over 150 movies from leads in Warner Bros. ' "pre-Code" pictures to countless supporting roles, and later enjoyed a steady TV career as a character actor, was born Lysle Henderson on February 8, 1902, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a small town in Nebraska, where after the early death of his mother, he was raised by her mother, Mary Hollywood Talbot, whose name he later bore professionally. Talbot's incredibly long and varied show-business career began right after high school, when he joined a traveling tent show. Starting out as a magician-hypnotist's assistant, he worked his way up to magician before quitting the carny's life for that of the stock theater. He learned to act with stock companies throughout the Midwest, where he became a leading man, and even formed his own short-lived company in Memphis, Tennessee, "The Talbot Players," which included his actor father and stepmother, Ed and Anna Henderson.

During a busy stretch of work in movie serials and live television in the early '50s, he lived at the Highland Towers Apartments at 1922 N. Highland Ave . in Hollywood (it is, as of this writing, a registered landmark). From 1955-89 he and his family lived at 3942 Goodland Ave. in Studio City, CA. where he was the town's "honorary mayor" in the 1960s.

He appeared in "A" pictures in the 1930s in supporting roles, including Three on a Match (1932), 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932), and One Night of Love (1934) (with opera star Grace Moore), but his work was mostly in "B" pictures, in which he frequently played leads. Although he thoroughly enjoyed the work, acting was practiced as an assembly line operation at the time. Actors would be assigned work usually based on 12-hour days and six-day weeks, and commit themselves to the infamous seven-year exclusive contract that included draconian suspension penalties in the fine print. Talbot, along with James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland and Bette Davis (ironically all WB contract players), were outspoken in their commitment to change working conditions for actors. Talbot was one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild and the first employee of the Brothers Warners to join the union, much to their ire. As a matinee idol during the Depression, frequently playing a gangster or tuxedo-clad man about town, Talbot co-starred with the leading actresses of the day, including Ginger Rogers, Mary Astor, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Glenda Farrell, Kay Francis, Mae West, Ann Dvorak, Loretta Young, Carole Lombard and Shirley Temple.

By 1931 he was in Hollywood as the talkies were maturing. He had the good looks of a star but, more importantly, he had a rich baritone voice that the talkies needed. After a screen test in which he inadvertently mocked Warner Bros. production head Darryl Zanuck but impressed director William "Wild Bill" Wellman, Talbot was signed by Warner Bros. -First National. The studio gave him a plum part in William A.

Wellman's Love Is a Racket (1932) co-staring with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. , Ann Dvorak and the fast-talking Lee Tracy.

Took part in one of Hollywood's most elaborate and extravagant publicity junkets: traveling on board a Warner Bros./General Electric "42nd Street Special" train, barnstorming across the country, stopping in dozens of cities to promote the Busby Berkeley musical [xx xxx], and ending up in Washington, DC, to support US President Franklin D. Roosevelt at his first inauguration in March 1933. Talbot was billed as the "Romeo" on the train in a group that included Bette Davis, Glenda Farrell, Leo Carrillo, Preston Foster, comedian Joe E. Brown, Olympic gold-medal swimmer Eleanor Holm, cowboy star Tom Mix (and his horse!) and "42nd Street" chorus girls.

Throughout his film and TV career, Talbot continued to perform on stage, co-starring in "Separate Rooms" on Broadway in the early 1940s and starring in national touring companies of Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" and summer stock tours of Gore Vidal's "The Best Man" and Thornton Wilder's "The Matchmaker.

Later, as a character actor, Talbot appeared as Commissioner Gordon in the 1949 serial Batman and Robin (1949) and was Lex Luthor in Atom Man vs.

Superman (1950) the next year. Talbot took on a tremendous number of roles, either because he was not discriminating enough, always wanted to keep working, or simply appreciated the money.

In the early 1950s he appeared in several of Edward D. Wood Jr.

He co-starred as Ozzie Nelson's friend Joe Randolph on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952) and as Robert Cummings' Air Force buddy in Love That Bob - Starring Bob Cummings "Grandpa's Christmas Visit" (1955) (also known as "Love that Bob") and made guest appearances on a plethora of TV series, including Leave It to Beaver (1957), The Lone Ranger (1949), Topper (1953), The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (1950), Perry Mason (1957), Rawhide (1959), Wagon Train (1957), The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), Green Acres (1965), Charlie's Angels (1976), Newhart (1982), The Dukes of Hazzard (1979) and Who's the Boss? (1984).

's most notorious films, including the infamous transvestite tear-jerker Glen or Glenda (1953) and the famously inept Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). Aside from Bela Lugosi, Talbot was Wood's most famous star.

Father of public television producer Stephen Talbot, a former child actor who was best known as Beaver's friend Gilbert on Leave It to Beaver (1957).

He may be the only actor to have starred in both leading roles in major productions of Neil Simon's play, "The Odd Couple," appearing in different national road company tours in the 1960s as Felix Unger (the Jack Lemmon role) and Oscar Madison (the Walter Matthau role).

" In 1967 he co-starred in a revival of "South Pacific" at New York's Lincoln Center with Florence Henderson.

During a sketch on Song of the Cloud Forest (1969) in 1980, Bert and Ernie watch Bert's goldfish swimming in their tank. The fish are named Bernice, Lyle, Talbot, and Melissa, Talbot's wife.

Talbot's acting career thrived on television, in which he appeared from the beginning of the medium until the 1980s.

Did voice-over work for two PBS documentaries written and produced by his son Stephen Talbot. He was the voice of Dashiell Hammett in the Peabody Award-winning biography The Case of Dashiell Hammett (1982) and narrated the Emmy-nominated World Without Walls (1986).

Two pairs of his successors in his DC Comics roles have worked together in two separate movies. Pat Hingle and Gene Hackman appear together in The Quick and the Dead (1995). Gary Oldman and Kevin Spacey appear together in Henry & June (1990).

Was working on his memoirs when he died in 1996 at the age of 94.

His youngest daughter, Margaret Talbot, is a staff writer for "The New Yorker" magazine and has written a book about him, "The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's Twentieth Century" (Riverhead Books, New York) to be published in November 2012.