Dan Duryea

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Dan Duryea (born January 23, 1907, in White Plains, New York; died June 7, 1968, in Hollywood, California) was an American TV and movie actor. He made his name on Broadway in the play Dead End, followed by The Little Foxes, in which he played the dishonest and not particularly bright weakling Leo Hubbard. He moved to Hollywood in 1940 to appear in the film version in the same role.

He established himself in films playing similar secondary roles as the foil, usually as a weak or annoyingly immature character, in movies such as The Pride of the Yankees. As his career progressed he played a number of roles as a violent, yet sexy, bad guy throughout the 1940s in a number of film noirs. Duryea usually played a con man or criminal who beat his women. His work in this era included Scarlet Street, The Woman in the Window, Criss Cross and Black Angel.

By the 1950s, Duryea spent most of his time appearing in television programs and an occasional western. Other notable roles included parts in Winchester '73 and The Flight of the Phoenix. He also appeared in one of the first Twilight Zone episodes in 1959 as a drunken former gunfighter in "Mr. Denton on Doomsday", written by Rod Serling.

Duryea was far removed from many of the characters he played in the course of his career. He was married for 35 years to his wife, Helen, who preceded him in death on January 21, 1967. The couple had two sons, Peter, who worked for a time as an actor, and Richard.

Dan Duryea died in 1968 at age sixty-one. He is buried in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.