February 18 Birthday Wishes

John Merton [1901 - 1959]

Holly Bane [1918 - 1995]

Jack Palance [1920 - 2006]

George Kennedy [1925 - ]

Howdy Pards!!

John Merton was a 1930's and 1940's serial actor, who specialized in villains. He is probably best known as the father of Lane Bradford, who also played a villain in every t.v. western series during the 50's and 60's.

Holly Bane, whose real name is Mike Ragan, was also a 40's serial actor, who migrated to t.v. work in the 50's

Who could ever forget Jack Palance as Jack Wilson in Shane??. He also appeared in The Professionals with Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster, again with Lee Marvin in the original Monte Walsh and GOD'S Gun. Four decades after his film debut, he was finally awarded an Oscar for his role in City Slickers, which the above photo is from. One of the baddest of the bad!!

George Kennedy is another actor, who has been around since the 50's. Appearing in Lonely Are The Brave, The Good Guys And The Bad Guys and Bandolero, and Cahill, U.S. Marshall, which the photo is from. He also appeared in just about every t.v. western there was. He won his Oscar for his role as Dragline in Cool Hand Luke.

Ed

I'm not familiar with John Merton or Holly Bane.

Jack Palance was in a lot of good movies, and made a fine villain. Who can forget him doing one armed push-ups when he won the Oscar!

George Kennedy was a fine actor. I first heard of him when I was kid when he played on the TV series The Blue Knight. It was over the years that I'd seen his movies: Cool Hand Luke, Bandalero, The Eiger Sanction, Airport. Also, good in the Naked Gun movies.

Holly Bane is the real name for Mike Ragan......he began his career under his real name of Holly Bane...changed over to Mike Ragan later (and that was what I always knew him as when I was young) and then took on his real name again when his acting career waned and he moved over into the make-up department on shows like Barnaby Jones.
John Merton was a B-western bad guy in so many of the old westerns that it easy to lose track of, just like Charles King & Roy Barcroft. He had two sons in the movie business....Lane Bradford and Bob LaVarre. Both his sons were stuntmen who moved over into acting roles, and then Bob returned to stunt work on Hawaii 5-O and then became cameraman on numerous shows, one of his last before retiring was on TV's Murder She Wrote. After John Merton's film career waned he moved over into driving a truck for the Wholesale Supply Company, delivering the raw materials to the laboratories to process for technicolor and the big studio labs. This led to another job in negative cutting where he spent about three years at MGM. Here they cut the negatives and spliced it together for reviewing the next day. His real name was Myrtland LaVarre, the name he worked under on Broadway. He came to Hollywood in the early 1930's and landed a small part in Laurel & Hardy's "Sons of the Desert", did a couple of B-westerns, and then was chosen by Cecil B. DeMille for a small role in Cleopatra. and John was proud that DeMille used him in every one of his movies thereafter through The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston. When DeMille hired him for Cleopatra, he told him, "You know what, Myrtland? You're not on the Broadway stage now; if you want to be an actor in Hollywood, you better shorten that name; it's a little fancy. So what can you say to that?" He replied back to DeMille, "What would you say if I just called myself John? And how about Merton; does that sound all right?" And thus, John Merton was born.

Thanks for pointing out that the picture of Merton was incorrect. I have since corrected and posted a correct photo. Gracias amigo.