William Bendix

About William Bendix

Who is it?: Actor, Soundtrack, Writer
Birth Day: January 14, 1906
Birth Place:  New York City, New York, United States
Died On: December 14, 1964(1964-12-14) (aged 58)\nLos Angeles, California, U.S.
Birth Sign: Aquarius
Resting place: San Fernando Mission Cemetery, Mission Hills, Los Angeles
Occupation: Film, radio, television actor
Years active: 1936–1964
Political party: Republican
Spouse(s): Theresa Stefanotti (1927–1964 (his death))
Children: 2

William Bendix Net Worth

William Bendix was born on January 14, 1906 in  New York City, New York, United States, is Actor, Soundtrack, Writer. William Bendix was not a son of Brooklyn, New York, although because of his stereotypical "Brooklyn accent" it has been widely supposed that he was. Bendix was actually born in the Borough of Manhattan (New York City proper), in a midtown flat hard by the tracks of the long-since defunct Third-Avenue Elevated Railway. (Manhattan sections of the "El," as New Yorkers called it, were demolished circa 1956.)Jut-jawed, broken-nosed and burly, Bendix began his acting career after the ravages of the Great Depression had killed his erstwhile grocery business. Having performed in nightclubs even while grocer, and having portrayed taxicab drivers in a series of Broadway flops, he enjoyed his first notable performance on the Broadway stage in 1939, portraying the cop Krupp in William Saroyan's "The Time of Your Life." His Hollywood feature debut came about in one of his few starring roles, in Hal Roach's Brooklyn Orchid (1942). But more often than not, in his movies Bendix received less than top billing, inasmuch as so many of his film assignments involved supporting roles. Despite (or perhaps on account of) his looks he was often called upon to supply comedic support, as in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949), when, portraying Sir Sagramore of King Arthur's Round Table in full suit of armor and pageboy wig, he waxeth eloquent, in his Brooklyn accent but in the most incongruent of Middle English dialects! On the other hand, that same craggy appearance had him in such roles as that of the thug Jeff in The Glass Key (1942), in which he repeatedly and gleefully uses his fists to beat star Alan Ladd's face to a pulp and then sadistically challenges Ladd, once he is healed, to come back and receive further "treatment"! Although he will always be fondly remembered for his light-comedy portrayals (in *three* of the mass media!) of Chester A. Riley in The Life of Riley (1949) and The Life of Riley (1953), perhaps William Bendix's finest and most memorable dramatic performance came in Lifeboat (1944), when he touchingly interprets the role of Gus, the shipwreck survivor whose gangrenous limb has to be removed, the absence of anesthesia notwithstanding.
William Bendix is a member of Actor

💰William Bendix Net worth: $12 Million

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Biography/Timeline

1920

Bendix, named william after his paternal grandfather, was born in Manhattan, the only child of Oscar and Hilda (Carnell) Bendix. His uncle was Composer, Conductor, and Violinist Max Bendix. In the early 1920s, Bendix was a batboy for the New York Yankees and said he saw Babe Ruth hit more than a hundred home runs at Yankee Stadium. However, he was fired after fulfilling Ruth's request for a large order of hot dogs and soda before a game, which resulted in Ruth being unable to play that day. In 1927, Bendix married Theresa Stefanotti. He worked as a grocer until the Great Depression.

1942

It was Bendix's appearance in the Hal Roach-produced film The McGuerins from Brooklyn (1942), playing a rugged blue-collar man, that led to his best remembered role. Producer and creator Irving Brecher saw Bendix as the perfect personification of Chester A. Riley, giving a second chance to a show whose audition failed when the sponsor spurned Groucho Marx for the lead. With Bendix stumbling, bumbling, and skating almost perpetually on thin ice, stretching the patience of his otherwise loving wife and children, The Life of Riley was a radio hit from 1944 through 1951, and Bendix brought an adaptation of the film version to Lux Radio Theatre.

1944

Bendix was a Republican. In the 1944 presidential election, for instance, he attended the massive rally organized by David O. Selznick in the Los Angeles Coliseum in support of the Dewey-Bricker ticket as well as Governor Earl Warren of California, who would become Dewey's running mate in 1948 and later the Chief Justice of the United States. The gathering drew 93,000, with Cecil B. DeMille as the master of ceremonies and with short speeches by Hedda Hopper and Walt Disney. Among the others in attendance were Ann Sothern, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Adolphe Menjou, Gary Cooper, Edward Arnold, Lionel Barrymore, Leo Carrillo, and Walter Pidgeon.

1948

Bendix's other well-known movie roles include his portrayal of Babe Ruth in The Babe Ruth Story (1948) – a film roundly considered one of the worst Sports biopics in film history and Sir Sagramore opposite Bing Crosby in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949), in which he took part in the trio, "Busy Doing Nothing". He played Nick the bartender in the film version of william Saroyan's The Time of Your Life (1948) starring James Cagney. Bendix had appeared in the stage version, but in the role of Officer Krupp (a role played on film by Broderick Crawford). He was also cast in The Blue Dahlia (1946), appearing for the second time alongside Ladd and Lake.

1949

Bendix was not able to play the role on television because of a contracted film commitment. The part instead went to Jackie Gleason and aired a single season beginning in October 1949. Despite winning an Emmy award, the show was cancelled, in part because Gleason was less acceptable as Riley, since Bendix had been so identified with the part on radio. In 1953, Bendix became available for a new television version, and this time the show was a hit. The second television version of The Life of Riley ran from 1953 to 1958, long enough for Riley to become a grandfather. On the 1952 television program This Is Your Life, hosted by Ralph Edwards, Bendix was claimed to be a descendant of the 19th century Composer Felix Mendelssohn.

1959

In NBC's Wagon Train ("Around the Horn", 1958), Bendix played the captain of a sailing cargo ship who shanghaied Major Adams (Ward Bond), Bill Hawks (Terry Wilson) and Charlie Wooster (Frank McGrath), forcing them to work on his ship. On November 16, 1959, Bendix appeared on NBC's color broadcast of The Steve Allen Plymouth Show with Jack Kerouac. A color videotape of the broadcast survives. Bendix starred in all seventeen episodes of the NBC western series Overland Trail (1960) in the role of Frederick Thomas "Fred" Kelly, the crusty superintendent of the Overland Stage Company. Doug McClure, later Trampas on NBC's The Virginian, co-starred as his young understudy, Frank "Flip" Flippen. He guest-starred in an episode of Mister Ed ("Pine Lake Lodge", 1961) which served as a back door pilot for a proposed sitcom that was not picked up.

1964

Bendix died in Los Angeles in 1964, the result of a chronic stomach ailment that brought on malnutrition and ultimately lobar pneumonia. He was interred at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery, in Mission Hills, Los Angeles.

2014

The show began as a proposed Groucho Marx radio series, The Flotsam Family, but the sponsor balked at what would have been essentially a straight head-of-household role for the Comedian. Then creator and Producer Irving Brecher saw Bendix as taxicab company owner Tim McGuerin in The McGuerins from Brooklyn. Brecher stated, "He was a Brooklyn guy and there was something about him. I thought, This guy could play it. He'd made a few films, like Lifeboat, but he was not a name. So I took The Flotsam Family script, revised it, made it a Brooklyn Family, took out the flippancies and made it more meat-and-potatoes, and thought of a new title, The Life of Riley. Bendix's delivery and the spin he put on his lines made it work." The reworked script cast Bendix as blundering Chester A. Riley, a wing riveter at the fictional Cunningham Aircraft plant in California. His frequent exclamation of indignation—"What a revoltin' development this is!"—became one of the catchphrases of the 1940s. It was later reused by Benjamin J. Grimm of the Fantastic Four.