Philip Carey

Philip Carey
Born	Eugene Joseph Carey (1925-07-15)July 15, 1925 Hackensack, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	February 6, 2009(2009-02-06) (aged 83) New York, New York, U.S.
Cause of death	Lung cancer
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)
Other names	Phil Carey
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1951–2008
Spouse(s)	Colleen Welch (1976-2009, his death) 2 children Maureen Peppler (1949-?, divorced) 3 children
Children	Jeff, Linda, Lisa (w/Peppler) Sean, Shannon (w/Welch)

Philip Carey (born Eugene Joseph Carey, July 15, 1925 – February 6, 2009)^[1][2] was an American actor.

Biography

Carey was born in Hackensack, New Jersey.^[3] A former U.S. Marine, Carey was wounded as part of the ship's detachment of the USS Franklin during World War II and served again in the Korean War.^[4]

One of his earliest roles was at Lt. (jg) Bob Perry in John Wayne's Operation Pacific. Carey also made appearances in films such as I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951), This Woman Is Dangerous with Joan Crawford (1952) Calamity Jane with Doris Day (1953), Pushover (1954), Mister Roberts (1955), The Long Gray Line (1955) and Monster (1979).

Carey's career started with ten characters in ten episodes of the Ford Theatre, a highly popular 1950s drama television series. He also narrated thirty-one episodes of the documentary Untamed World. He portrayed fictional detective Philip Marlowe in a 1959 ABC series of the same name, Philip Marlowe. He portrayed four different characters on as many episodes of ABC's mystery series 77 Sunset Strip starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. He was among the guest stars in the CBS anthology series, GE True, hosted by Jack Webb.

In 1956, Carey starred on the NBC series Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers. Carey's character was portrayed as Canadian because Carey reportedly could not master a British accent.^[5] He played the character Simon Battle in "The Rifleman". From 1965–1967, Carey played Captain Edward Parmalee on the NBC western television series Laredo, set in Laredo, a South Texas city located on the Rio Grande. His co-stars included William Smith, Peter Brown, and Neville Brand. After Laredo, Carey guest starred in an episode of ABC's military-western Custer starring Wayne Maunder in the title role. Carey had played Custer himself in The Great Sioux Massacre (1965) and played Captain Myles Keogh at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in Walt Disney's Tonka in 1959.

In 1971, Carey guest-starred on the landmark fifth installment of All in the Family, playing Steve, an ex-professional football player friend of Archie Bunker's who tells Archie he's gay. The episode was entitled "Judging Books By Covers".

From 1979 until late 2007, he played the protective Texan patriarch Asa Buchanan on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live.

Carey became well known for a series of tongue-in-cheek television commercials for Granny Goose potato chips, in which he self-identified as "Granny Goose", portraying the company's spokesperson as a tough cowboy.

Carey was diagnosed with lung cancer in January 2006 and underwent chemotherapy.

In late March 2007, it was announced that Carey would be exiting One Life to Live. He had appeared in one episode in 2003 and one episode of All My Children in 2004. He appeared in an additional nine episodes of One Life to Live between January 3, 2007 and May 16, 2007. Carey turned down an offer to go to recurring status with the show (although he nevertheless did, in fact, make several appearances on the show after his official exit in late 2007, including several appearances in July 2008, with his final appearance having been on December 29, 2008).

Carey was married twice; in 1949 to Maureen Peppler, with whom he had a son Jeff and two daughters, Linda and Lisa. At the time of his death, Carey had been married since 1974 to Colleen Welch, with whom he had a son, Sean, and a daughter, Shannon.

He was close friends with his on-screen sons, Clint Ritchie and Robert S. Woods.^[6]

Carey died of lung cancer at the age of eighty-three, less than a week after the death of Clint Ritchie, who played Asa's son Clint on One Life to Live from 1979 to 1998.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Philip Carey.

• Philip Carey at the Internet Movie Database
• Philip Carey interview video at the Archive of American Television
• "ABC Press Release: Phil Carey, Asa Buchanan on ABC Daytime's One Life to Live, Passes Away". ABCMedianet.com. February 9, 2009. Retrieved August 7, 2009. 
• ABC Soaps in Depth-source for the OLTL news about Phil Carey and his illness
• Obituary in the Star Gazette