From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Dan Duryea January 23 1907 in White Plains New York June 7 1968 in Hollywood California was an American actor of film stage and television Duryea graduated from Cornell University in 1928 While at Cornell Duryea was elected into the Sphinx Head Society 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 throughout the 1940s he began to carve a niche as a violent yet sexy bad guy in a number of film noirs In so doing he established a significant female following and over time something of a cult status His work in this era included Scarlet Street The Woman in the Window Criss Cross Black Angel and Too Late for Tears From the 1950s Duryea was more often seen in Westerns most notably his charismatic villain in Winchester 73 1950 Other memorable work in the latter part of his career included Thunder Bay 1953 The Burglar 1957 The Flight of the Phoenix 1965 and the primetime soap opera Peyton Place 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 He guest starred on NBCs anthology series The Barbara Stanwyck Show In 1963 Duryea appeared as Dr Ben Lorrigan in the episode Why Am I Grown So Cold on the NBC medical drama about psychiatry The Eleventh Hour Duryea was far removed from many of the characters he played in the course of his career He was married for thirtyfive 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 of cancer at the age of sixtyone His remains are interred in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles California Description above from the Wikipedia article Dan Duryea licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia
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