William Bakewell

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William "Billy" Bakewell (born May 2, 1908 in Los Angeles , California , † April 15, 1993 ibid) was an American actor.

life and career

William Bakewell attended Los Angeles Harvard Military School. At the age of 15 he began his film career as an extra, but was given bigger roles towards the end of the silent film era. During the Pre-Code he often played youthful-naive young men. Bakewell starred several times at the side of Joan Crawford , for example as her irresponsible brother in the 1931 film, Wrong Paths of Life . He is also best known for the role of the soldier Albert Kropp in Nothing New in the West (1930), the famous film adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's anti-war novel about the First World War. In the mid-1930s, Bakewell's career passed its zenith, so that he was mostly only used in B-films and only spoke a few sentences during occasional appearances in larger films such as Gone with the Wind - as a riding officer in Atlanta. He fought in World War II as a second lieutenant .

In the 1950s and 1960s he had numerous guest roles in American television series. He starred in the television series Bonanza , The People at Shiloh Ranch , Underwater Adventures, and Mr. Ed , among others . After around 190 film and television appearances, he retired from the acting business in 1975. In the second half of his life, Bakewell also worked with considerable success as a real estate agent in California.

In 1933 Bakewell was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild . He was also involved with the Motion Picture & Television Fund for decades . In 1948, after two years of marriage, he separated from actress Jennifer Holt . His second marriage to Diane Griffiths lasted from 1955 until his death, and the marriage had two daughters. In 1991 he published his biography under the title Hollywood Be Thy Name: Random Recollections of a Movie Veteran From Silents to Talkies to TV . William Bakewell died in 1993 at the age of 84 years to leukemia .

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Bakewell | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos | AllMovie. Retrieved October 28, 2017 .
  2. ^ Bakewell's book on Google Books