Robert Sterling

Born William Sterling Hart in 1917, the Pennsylvania-born actor was the son of a professional ballplayer. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, then worked as a clothing salesman before deciding to give acting a try.

Shortly after arriving in Hollywood in 1938, he tested for the boxing lead in Golden Boy (1939), but lost out to William Holden. He ended up with an uncredited bit in the movie. He later played a boxer in the movie Ringside Maisie (1941) where he met first wife Ann Sothern.

He certainly had the requisite dreamboat looks as Columbia signed this blue-eyed, black-haired, extraordinary-looking specimen in 1939. Billed as Robert Sterling as not to confuse anyone with the silent screen legend William S. Hart, he was groomed in two-reeled shorts and bit parts in minor features but nothing much happened.

In 1941, MGM took him on as a possible replacement for another gorgeous Robert - Robert Taylor - who was about to join the Navy.

While at MGM he appeared in slick, "nice guy" second leads in such "A" films as Greta Garbo's swan song Two-Faced Woman (1941), Johnny Eager (1941) and Somewhere I'll Find You (1942), the last two starring Lana Turner, while starring in "B" rankers that included The Getaway (1941) and This Time for Keeps (1942). Sterling himself would serve during WWII with the Army Air Force as a pilot instructor and was stationed at one point in London. His movie persona suggested more than a trace of the dapper playboy, and his carefree style and tone easily had Gig Young coming to mind.

Sterling married actress Ann Sothern in 1943 after meeting her on the set of Ringside Maisie (1941), one of several programmers in Sothern's "Maisie" series. They had a daughter, Patricia, who later became the actress Tisha Sterling.

Sothern in 1949, he was introduced to actress Anne Jeffreys while making his Broadway debut in "Gramercy Ghost" down the block from where she was starring in the musical "Kiss Me Kate.

Robert's film career, however, lost major momentum in post-war years with rather pat, colorless parts in such action dramas as Bunco Squad (1950) and Column South (1953), and even in the splashy musical Show Boat (1951). Divorced from Ms.

" The couple wed in 1951 and produced three sons. Robert and Anne (who was also having a down time in films by this point) decided to revive their faltering careers with a singing club act.

Not only was their pairing a success, it led directly to their starring roles in the classic Topper (1953) comedy series on TV. As wry, debonair ghost George Kirby, he and Anne (playing his equally "spirited" wife Marion) expertly took over the jet-setting roles established on film by Cary Grant and Constance Bennett. The couple soon became household names engaging audiences week after week with their delightfully capricious antics and disappearing acts, much to the chagrin of bemused mortal Leo G. Carroll in the title role.

Once considered for the title role in the classic Perry Mason (1957) series, which eventually went to Raymond Burr.

Robert and Anne continued to perform together on stage ("Bells Are Ringing") and even top-lined another sitcom Love That Jill (1958) which lasted only a few months.

After another failed series Ichabod and Me (1961), which was a solo effort, and a couple of pedestrian parts in the movies Return to Peyton Place (1961) (as Dr.

Michael Rossi) (1961), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) and A Global Affair (1964), Robert slacked off considerably.

He made only one return to Broadway with the 1961 light comedy "Roman Candle" co-starring Inger Stevens and Julia Meade. The show folded quickly.

Created a family business in the 1970s with Sterling & Sons, a Santa Monica company that manufactured custom-made golf clubs.

Upon his death, he was cremated by the Neptune Society and his ashes were given to his widow, the actress Anne Jeffreys. When Jeffreys died on September 27, 2017, two months before what would've been Sterling's 100th birthday, she herself was promptly cremated with her ashes deposited within the same urn that held his. The urn that holds them together is now in the custody of Tisha Sterling in Idaho.