Simon Oakland

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Simon Oakland (born August 28, 1915 in Brooklyn , New York , † August 29, 1983 in Cathedral City , California ) was an American actor .

Life

Simon Oakland began his artistic career as a violinist . In the mid-1940s he also gained a foothold as an actor and from 1948 played on Broadway in well-known plays such as Light Up the Sky , The Shrike and Inherit the Wind . Oakland took his first major film role in 1958 as a bold but sincere journalist in Let Me Live by Susan Hayward .

Oakland covered a wide acting spectrum in the course of his career and distinguished himself as a versatile character actor. Often the actor was cast as an unsympathetic character or "tough guy" due to his external appearance - strong figure, slightly coarse features. Oakland played high-profile supporting roles in numerous film classics, for example the psychologist in the final scenes of Psycho (1960), the hot-headed policeman “Closet” in the West Side Story (1961), the brutal sailor Stawski in the gunboat on the Yangtze-Kiang (1966) or Steve McQueen's boss in the 1968 police film Bullitt .

With around 150 guest appearances in series, mostly in the episode lead role, Simon Oakland was also frequently present on television. From the early 1950s, Oakland appeared regularly as a television actor for a good three decades. He played for example in Perry Mason , Twilight Zone , Smoking Colts , Bonanza (among other things as a singing serial killer in the episode A Fist Full of Thunder ), The People of the Shiloh Ranch , Hawaii Five-Zero , Operation in Manhattan , Detective Rockford , Three Angels for Charlie or Quincy . In 1977 and 1978 he played one of the leading roles in the series Pazifikgeschwader 214 . Simon Oakland was in front of the camera until a few months before his death.

Simon Oakland died of cancer on August 29, 1983, the day after his 68th birthday. He left behind his wife Lois Lorraine Porta (1918-2003), with whom he had a daughter.

Filmography (selection)

Motion picture

Television (selection)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Oakland, Simon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH August 28, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH new York
DATE OF DEATH August 29, 1983
Place of death Cathedral City