Corey was born in Dracut, Massachusetts, the son of Milton Rothwell Corey (October 24, 1879 – October 23, 1951) and Julia Etta McKenney (April 11, 1882 – June 16, 1947). His father was a Congregationalist clergyman. Wendell was educated in Springfield. His ancestors included U.S. Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams.
Wendell Reid Corey (March 20, 1914 – November 8, 1968) was an American actor and Politician.
Corey "began acting in 1938 with the depression-spawned Federal Theatre Project".
He followed it with the mildly popular Strip for Action (1942-43) by Lindsay and Crouse; The First Million (1943); Manhattan Nocturne (1943) directed by Stella Adler; Jackpot (1944); But Not Goodbye (1944) by George Seaton; and The Wind is Ninety with Kirk Douglas.
Most of these had short runs. Corey had his first hit as a cynical newspaperman in Elmer Rice's comedy Dream Girl (1945).
For Wallis he supported Lancaster again in Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), playing a Doctor who treats Barbara Stanwyck. He was a cop in The Accused (1949) with Loretta Young and Robert Cummings.
MGM borrowed Corey for a popular romantic comedy Any Number Can Play (1949), supporting Clark Gable and Alexis Smith. Less popular was Holiday Affair (1949) at RKO where Corey was billed after Robert Mitchum and Janet Leigh.
Wallis promoted him to co-star status in The File on Thelma Jordon (1950) where he appeared opposite Barbara Stanwyck. Corey had a good part in Columbia's No Sad Songs for Me (1950) playing Margaret Sullavan's husband. Wallis re-teamed him with Stanwyck in a Western, The Furies (1950), best remembered as Walter Huston's final film. Corey appeared opposite another strong female star, Joan Crawford, in Harriet Craig (1950) at Columbia.
At MGM Corey played Jane Powell's father in a musical Rich, Young and Pretty (1951). He went to Republic Pictures where he was top billed in a war film The Wild Blue Yonder (1951).
Wallis sold Corey's contract to Paramount in 1952. Corey supported Ray Milland in Jamaica Run (1952) for Paramount. He went to England to appear in The Voice of the Turtle on stage. While there he appeared in Laughing Anne (1953) with Margaret Lockwood. Back in the US he was in Hell's Half Acre (1954) for Republic..
Corey had one of his most memorable roles when he played Lt. Thomas Doyle in Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954) starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly. He toured the US on stage in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial in 1954.
He appeared in The Big Knife (1955) starring Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, and Shelley Winters; The Killer Is Loose (1956), playing a Criminal after Joseph Cotten; The Bold and the Brave (1956) with Mickey Rooney at RKO; The Rack (1956), a Korean War drama at MGM, where Corey was billed after Paul Newman.
He made two more films for Wallis: The Rainmaker (1956) starring Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn, and Loving You (1957) with Elvis Presley, in his second starring role, and Lizabeth Scott.
Corey starred with Casey Walters in the television series Harbor Command (1957–1958). For Disney he was in the film The Light in the Forest (1958). Then he played Jesse James in the Bob Hope comedy Alias Jesse James (1959) and had a short Broadway run in Jolly's Progress (1959) with Eartha Kitt.
Corey served as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1961 to 1963 and was a member of the board of Directors of the Screen Actors Guild. A Republican campaigner in national politics since 1956, Corey was elected to the Santa Monica City Council in April 1965. The conservative Politician ran for a California seat in the United States Congress in 1966, but lost the primary election. He was still a councilman at the time of his death.
His final films included Blood on the Arrow (1964),a Western; Agent for H.A.R.M. (1966), a spy film; Women of the Prehistoric Planet (1966), a science fiction film in which Corey was top billed; Waco (1966) and Red Tomahawk (1966), two Westerns with Howard Keel; Cyborg 2087 (1966), more science fiction; Picture Mommy Dead (1966) a horror movie with Don Ameche; Buckskin (1968), a Western. His last film appearance was in Ted V. Mikels' The Astro-Zombies (1968).
Corey made guest appearances on a number of programs, including Target: The Corruptors!, Channing, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Untouchables, Burke's Law, The Road West, and The Wild Wild West. He made a guest appearance during the final season of Perry Mason in 1966 as murder victim Jerome Klee in "The Case of the Unwelcome Well."
Corey died November 8, 1968, at age 54 at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, of cirrhosis of the liver as a result of alcoholism. Funeral services were held at First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica, California. He is interred in Washington Cemetery in Washington, Massachusetts.
