Marlowe was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He began his stage career in the 1930s at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. He was first seen on the stage in New York City in Arrest That Woman. His Broadway appearances included Kiss the Boys Goodbye, The Land Is Bright, Lady in the Dark, Laura, and Duet for Two Hands. In 1939–40, Marlowe was in two network radio programs. He was Jim Curtis in the soap operaBrenda Curtis, and he played the title character in the first radio version of The Adventures of Ellery Queen.
Film and television career
Marlowe was usually a secondary lead or supporting actor in the films he appeared in. His first film was Brilliant Marriage. His films included Meet Me in St. Louis. For a time, he worked regularly for 20th Century Fox, appearing in Twelve O'Clock High, All About Eve, Night and the City, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Rawhide, and Howard Hawks' Monkey Business. His later films include Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Elmer Gantry, Birdman of Alcatraz, and Seven Days in May. Marlowe played a real person, the Reverend William Hyde, in the 1956 episode "Dig or Die, Brother Hyde" of the religionanthology series, Crossroads. In the 1957 episode, "Jhonakehunkga Called Jim", set in 1883, Marlowe plays the Reverend Jacob Stucki, who is dispatched to the mission at the Winnebago reservation. Marlowe guest starred in the 1961 episode "Mayberry on Record" of CBS's The Andy Griffith Show. In 1962, he played the part of Sam Garner in the episode "The Pitchwagon" on CBS's Rawhide. Marlowe made six guest appearances on CBS's Perry Mason, starring Raymond Burr. Among those roles, he was cast as district attorney and Mason client Brander Harris in "The Case of the Fraudulent Foto," and as murder victim Cmdr. James Page in "The Case of the Slandered Submarine". He also played murder victim Ernest Stone in "The Case of the Nebulous Nephew", and murderer Guy Munford in "The Case of the Hasty Honeymooner". In 1964 Marlowe appeared as Clay Billings on The Virginian in the episode "The Intruders." Marlowe also appeared as Donald Burton, a newspaper reporter, on a 1965 episode of Hazel titled "Hazel's Day in Court" and as pretentious TV documentarian Bainbridge Wells in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Marlowe was a regular on the NBCtelevision daytime drama, Another World, the last of four actors to portray the Matthews family patriarch, Jim Matthews, from 1969 until his death in 1982. Marlowe is frequently confused with actor Richard Carlson. Despite a remarkable physical and vocal resemblance, the two actors were not related.
Private life
Marlowe was married three times, each time to an actress. Between 1941 and 1946, he was married to Edith Atwater, between 1946 and 1968 he was married to K.T. Stevens, with whom he had two sons, Jeffrey and Christian. From 1968 to his death, he was married to Rosemary Torri with whom he had one son, Hugh MichaelII.
