Reed Hadley

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Reed Hadley June 25 1911 December 11 1974 was an American movie television and radio actor Reed Hadley was born Reed Herring in Petrolia in Clay County near Wichita Falls Texas to Bert Herring an oil well driller and his wife Minnie Hadley had one sister Bess Brenner He was reared in Buffalo New York He graduated from Bennett High School in Buffalo and was involved in local theater with the Studio Arena Theater Hadley and his wife Helen had one son Dale Before moving to Hollywood he acted in Hamlet on stage in New York City Throughout his thirtyfiveyear career in film Hadley was cast as both a villain and a hero of the law in such movies as The Baron of Arizona 1950 The HalfBreed 1952 Highway Dragnet 1954 and Big House USA 1955 With his bass voice he narrated a number of documentaries He starred in two television series Racket Squad 19501953 as Captain Braddock and The Public Defender 19541955 as Bart Matthews a fictional attorney for the indigent Hadley also worked on the Red Ryder radio show during the 1940s being the first actor to portray the title character In films among other things he starred as Zorro in the 1939 serial Zorros Fighting Legion He is immortalized on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his television work He was the voice of cowboy hero Red Ryder on radio and the narrator of several Department of Defense films Operation Ivy about the first hydrogen bomb test Ivy Mike Military Participation on TumblerSnapper Military Participation on Buster Jangle and Operation UpshotKnothole all of which were produced by Lookout Mountain studios The films were originally intended for internal military use but have been sanitized edited and declassified and are now available to the public During the period he narrated these films Hadley held a Top Secret security clearance Hadley also served as the narrator on various Hollywood films including House on 92nd Street 1945 Call Northside 777 1947 and Boomerang 1947 He died at age 63 on December 11 1974 in Los Angeles California of a heart attack He is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills Description above from the Wikipedia article Reed Hadley licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia