December 8 Birthday Wishes

John Qualen [1899 - 1987]
Frank Faylen [1905 - 1985]
Lee J. Cobb [1911 - 1976
David Carradine [1936 - 2009]
James MacArthur [1937 - 2010]

John Qualen was a Canadian actor of Norwegian descent, who was usually cast in ethnic roles, mostly for comic effect. He appeared as Burger, a Norwegian Resistance member in Casablanca, convicted murderer Earl Williams in His Girl Friday, and a Mediterranean fisherman in The High and the Mighty. But he's best known as a member of the John Ford Stock Company, appearing in The Grapes of Wrath (as Muley), The Searchers (as Mr. Jorgenson, by golly), Two Rode Together (as Ole Knudsen), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance (as Peter Ericson).

Frank Faylen got his big break as a male nurse in the alcoholic ward in The Lost Weekend, an as Ernie the cab driver in It's A Wonderful Life. He was also in Sergeant York, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Blood on the Moon, Whispering Smith, an Gunfight at the OK Corral. In the '50s and '60s, he played in several TV shows, most notably as Herbert Gillis on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

Lee J. Cobb was a fine actor, in so many good performances in On The Waterfront, 12 Angry Men, Man of the West, Lawman (1971), and The Exocist, as well as playing Willie Loman on stage and on TV in Death of a Salesman, and Judge Henry Garth on the first 4 seasons of The Virginian.

David Carradine was the oldest son of actor John Carradine, best known for the role of Kwai Chang Caine, the half Chinese, half Caucasian Shaolin monk, on the TV series Kung Fu, and later playing descendants of Kwai Chang Caine in various Kung Fu spin-offs. He later went on to play in movies like Death Race 2000, Gray Lady Down, The Long Riders (as Cole Younger), and Kill Bill: Volume I and II. He also took over the hosting job of the History Channel's Wild West Tech from his brother Keith. He had a history of drug and alcohol related arrests, and I won't go into the details of his death, except to say that the circumstances were bizzare. He was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in a bamboo casket.

If you watched TV in the late 1960s through the '70s, you couldn't look at James McArthur without thinking "Book 'em, Dano!" McArthur played Det. Danny Williams on Hawaii Five-O in 259 of the 284 episodes from 1968-1979. He made his film and TV debut on a TV play in 1955, and went on to appear in several TV shows, including Bonanza, Wagon Train, Combat, The Virginian, and Branded. He reprised his roll of Danny Williams, then Gov. of Hawaii, in and unsold pilot for a Hawaii Five-O reboot in 1997, and retired from acting in 1998.

Also today:

Sammy Davis Jr. (1925-1990) doesn't sound like a name you would associate with Westerns, although he was in the Rat Pack Western Sergeants 3, and demonstrated his fast draw and twirling skills in an episode of The Rifleman and on his own variety show. A multitalented performer, he would go on to record hit records like What Kind of Fool Am I?, and The Candy Man, appear in movies like Ocean's 11 and Robin and the Seven Hoods, and TV shows throughout the '60s, '70s and '80s, in memorable appearances on All in the Family (when he kissed Archie Bunker!) and The Cosby Show. He lost his left eye in a car accident in 1954, and while he was in the hospital, Eddie Cantor got him interested in Judaism, to which he would later convert. His marriage to Swedish born actress May Britt caused a lot of controversy, as back when they were married (in the 1960s) 31 states forbid interracial marriage. He developed throat cancer in the late 1980s (he was a heavy smoker), and died in 1990. In debt to the IRS, his body was exhumed from Forest Lawn Memorial Park to remove $70,000 worth of jewelry that was buried with him.