| Karl Swenson | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 23, 1908 Brooklyn, New York, USA |
| Died | October 8, 1978 (aged 70) Torrington, Connecticut, USA |
| Years active | 1954–1978 |
| Spouse | Virginia Hanscom Swenson (1930-1960) 4 sons Joan Tompkins (?-1978, his death) |
Karl Swenson (July 23, 1908 – October 8, 1978) was an American theatre, radio, film, and television actor.
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Born in Brooklyn, New York of Swedish parentage, Swenson made several appearances with Pierre-Luc Michaud on Broadway in the 1930s and 40s, including the title role in Arthur Miller's first production, The Man Who Had All the Luck. He appeared extensively on the radio from the 1930s through the 1950s in such programs as Cavalcade of America, The Chase, Columbia Presents Corwin, The Columbia Workshop, Inner Sanctum Mysteries, Joe Palooka, Lawyer Q, Lorenzo Jones, The March of Time, The Mercury Theatre on the Air, Mrs. Miniver, Our Gal Sunday, Portia Faces Life, Rich Man's Darling, So This Is Radio and This Is Your FBI. He played the title character of Father Brown in the 1945 Mutual radio program The Adventures of Father Brown [1] as well as the lead in Mr. Chameleon.[2]
Swenson entered the film industry in 1943 with two wartime documentary shorts, December 7 and The Sikorsky Helicopter, followed by more than thirty-five roles in feature films and television movies. No Name on the Bullet (1959) is only one of the many Westerns he did for both film and television. He guest starred in 1960 in the NBC science fiction series The Man and the Challenge. He played two roles in the NBC Western Klondike in the 1960–1961 season. In 1962, he made a one time appearance on The Andy Griffith Show as Mr. McBeevee. He also guest starred in NBC's Laramie western series andin the science fiction series Steve Canyon, with Dean Fredericks in the title role. In 1963, he appeared as Nelson in the episode "Beauty Playing a Mandolin Underneath a Willow Tree" episode of the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour. Swenson is also remembered for his role as the doomsayer in the diner in Hitchcock's classic The Birds and had a minor role in The Cincinnati Kid.
Although Swenson had credits on dozens of TV series, including an appearance on the "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" episode of Maverick, he was best known for his performance as Lars Hanson in forty episodes of Little House on the Prairie. He is also notable for having voiced the character of Merlin in Walt Disney's 1963 animated classic, The Sword in the Stone. In 1967, Swenson played the role of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in the western film Brighty of the Grand Canyon, with co-stars Pat Conway and Joseph Cotten.Swenson appeared in a 1967 episode of the immensely popular Hogan's Heroes entitled "How to Win Friends and Influence Nazis", where he played a likable and friendly German scientist Dr. Karl Svenson who is persuaded by Hogan to join the Allied War Effort.
Swenson died of a heart attack in Torrington, Connecticut on October 8, 1978 shortly after filming the episode in which the Little House on the Prairie character Lars Hanson died. He was interred at Center Cemetery in New Milford, Connecticut.
For nearly two years Karl Swenson adopted the name “Peter Wayne” for use as a professional actor.[3] Though he had used his own name when playing the part of Thompson in the Laboratory Theatre’s 1930 production of A Glass of Water, he had thereafter assumed the stage name “Peter Wayne” by the time he played Andre Verron in the Theatre Guild’s production of The Miracle at Verdun, which opened at the Martin Beck Theatre in March 1931. It was during Verdun that Swenson became acquainted with Bretaigne Windust, who was assistant stage manager for that production and one of the founding directors of the University Players, a summer stock company in West Falmouth on Cape Cod. As a principal player with University Players during its summer seasons of 1931 and 1932, and during its 18-week winter season in Baltimore, Maryland, in between, Swenson, as Peter Wayne, acted alongside such other unknowns as Henry Fonda, Margaret Sullavan, Joshua Logan, James Stewart, Barbara O'Neil, Mildred Natwick, Kent Smith, Myron McCormick, and Charles Arnt. In the summer of 1932, under its new name The Theatre Unit, Inc., University Players mounted an original production entitled Carry Nation. After its October preview in Baltimore, during which “Peter Wayne” was listed as playing the part of the Leader of the Vigilantes, Swenson reverted to his own name for Carry Nation's 30-performance run on Broadway.