March 31 Birthday Wishes

Eddie Quilan [1907 - 1990]

Ted Post [1918 - ]

Richard Kiley [1922 - 1999]

Howdy Manco!!

Eddie Quilan started his career as a child actor in Vaudeville and silent films. He made the transition from silents to talkies and from childrens roles to adult roles in Mutiny On The Bounty, Young .Mr Lincoln and The Grapes Of Wrath. During his later career he appeared on many of the sitcoms on t.v.. After making a friend of Michael Landon, he often appeared in Little House On The Prairie, Highway To Heaven and Father Murphy, all Landon productions.

Ted Post is primarily known for his work in directing. During the 50's he directed episodes of Rawhide, Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone and over 150 episodes of Peyton Place. He also directed The Legend Of Tom Dooley, which starred Michael Landon and Hang'um High and Magnum Force for Clint Eastwood. While we're on the subject, the film, The Legend Of Tom Dooley came from the hit song by the Kingston Trio during the 50's, about the killing of a young woman in Polk or Rutherfordton county N.C. shortly after the Civil War. The mans name was actually Tom Dula (not Dooley), and he WAS hanged for his crime.

Richard Kiley has always been one of my favorite actors. I guess I first saw him in Blackboard Jungle in 1955, with Glenn Ford. He could play both leading man and supporting roles with equal talent. He also appeared in the mini-series, The Thorn Birds with Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward. He was the voice you heard as the park narrator in the film, Jurassic Park and is also the voice you hear in Universal's Jurassic park tour in Orlando, Florida. Later in his career he provided the voice for A&E's mysteries Of The Bible along with Jean Simmons. I remember an episode of Gunsmoke, in which he plays an aging town tamer, who replaces a wounded Matt and let's Dodge City run wild. As I recall, he also did a t.v. movie with James Arness titled The Last Apache, in which Arness played an aging Matt Dillon of the Gunsmoke series.

Ed

Richard Kiley also played Zeb Machan's brother Timothy in The Macahans, the pilot to series How the West Was Won.

Richard Kiley was cast to play the guest role in an episode of Gunsmoke called "The Saga of Benjamin Brown." Kiley really liked the script and the character he was to play, but unfortunately the episode was never filmed and had to be cancelled after Miolburn Stone (who had a major part in the episode) suffered his heart attack and wasn't up to the vigors of the role. This was the first script my brother Ray ever sold and got him into the writing stable of John Mantley, producer of Gunsmoke and later How the West was Won. Mantley really liked thje script, saying it was very poetic and unlike any other Gunsmoke ever written, and used it as an example in some lectures he gave on the side to aspiring writers or something like that. A friend who has seen a number of Broadway plays said one of her two favorites was Richard Kiley in Man of La Mancha. He was a really good actor.