Dane Clark

Was considered at one point to play Al Jolson in a remake of The Jazz Singer (1927) but the idea was scrapped. The film was finally made as The Jazz Singer (1952) with Danny Thomas in the lead.

Dane Clark was born Bernard Elliot Zanville in Brooklyn, New York City, to Rose (Korostoff) and Samuel Zanville, who were Russian Jewish immigrants. He graduated from Cornell University and St. John's Law School (Brooklyn). When he had trouble finding work in the mid-1930s he tried boxing, baseball, construction, sales and modeling, among other jobs. From there he went into acting on Broadway ("Dead End", "Stage Door", "Of Mice and Men"), which finally brought him to Hollywood.

Made his Broadway debut in Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre production of "Panic" in 1935.

He acted under his own name until 1943 when, as Dane Clark (a name he said was given him by Humphrey Bogart), he took the role of sailor Johnnie Pulaski in Warner's Action in the North Atlantic (1943), a wartime tribute to the Merchant Marine.

He was a regular in World War II movies, playing the part of a submariner in Destination Tokyo (1943), an airman in God Is My Co-Pilot (1945) and a Marine in Pride of the Marines (1945). Though he co-starred with such luminaries as Bogart, Cary Grant, Bette Davis and Raymond Massey, it was his self-described "Joe Average" image that got him his parts: "They don't go much for the 'pretty boy' type [at Warner Brothers]. An average-looking guy like me has a chance to get someplace, to portray people the way they really are, without any frills.

In the September 1946 edition of "Movie Life Magazine" he was dubbed "the most stylish actor in Hollywood".

In an interview he said that he and Ida Lupino fell in love and became engaged while shooting Deep Valley (1947). She took him home to meet her family. He said he had such an adverse reaction to them--calling them "leeches and freeloaders"--that he called off the wedding.

Was given a 1948 Buick Roadmaster by Jack L. Warner as a birthday present.

He was considered for the male leads, but never screen tested, in such films as The Asphalt Jungle (1950), 99 River Street (1953), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and Picnic (1955).

In 1955 he was starring in a stage production of "The Shrike" at the old Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles with Isabel Bonner who died unexpectedly in his arms during a love scene from a sudden brain hemorrhage.

In 1996 director James Cameron called Clark at his California home asking him if he'd be interested to come out of retirement to star as Captain Edward John Smith in Titanic (1997) but he declined the offer based on health issues.