John Dehner


John Dehner was an American actor and animator. He had a long and prolific career in radio, television, and film, often as droll villains. Between 1940 and 1989, he appeared in over 260 films, television series, and made-for-television movies.

Early years

Dehner was born in Staten Island, New York City.
He initially went into art after studying at the Grand Central School of Art in New York City, New York. He worked as an animator at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank.

Radio

Dehner's early radio jobs included being a news editor and a disc jockey. While working at KFWB in Los Angeles, California, he was a member of a news team that won a Peabody Award for its reporting on the first United Nations conference.
Possessing a deep, resonant voice, Dehner had an extensive career as a radio actor and was once recognized by Radio Life Magazine as having the entertainment industry's "best radio voice". He performed as a lead or supporting player in such series as The Whistler, Gunsmoke, Laramie, and Philip Marlowe. He also starred as Paladin in the radio version of Have Gun - Will Travel, one of the few times a show began on television and then was later adapted for radio. On CBS Radio in 1958, he starred in the series Frontier Gentleman, a Western that opened with a trumpet theme by Jerry Goldsmith and the following introduction:
Written and directed by Antony Ellis, the short-lived series followed the adventures of journalist Kendall as he roamed the West in the post-Civil War United States searching for dramatic stories for his newspaper.
Dehner portrayed Elmer Truitt on The Trouble with the Truitts and the title character on The Judge. He also performed regularly on Family Skeleton, Escape, and The Black Book.

Films

Over a 45-year movie career in Hollywood, between 1940 and 1986, Dehner appeared in no fewer than 126 feature films and shorts. He played Sheriff Pat Garrett in Gore Vidal's The Left Handed Gun opposite Paul Newman as Billy the Kid.
He appeared too in Scaramouche as Doutreval of Dijon; and he played a district attorney in Please Murder Me, an American film noir film released in 1956, a production directed by Peter Godfrey and starring Angela Lansbury and Raymond Burr. The following year, he performed a non-singing role of Mr. Bascombe, the mill owner and intended robbery victim, in the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel. In 1951, he appeared in the film The Texas Rangers. He also played the villain in The Man from Bitter Ridge, as well as Taylor Swope, one of Vinnie Harrold's bad guy gang in The Fastest Gun Alive, starring Glenn Ford,. In 1978 in The Boys From Brazil, he portrayed Henry Wheelock, the last man killed by Dr. Josef Mengele.

Television

Dehner's roles on TV programs included Marshal Edge Troy on Young Maverick, Jim Duke Williams on The Roaring 20's, Dr. Charles Claver on Temperatures Rising, T. Jacob Broggi on Enos, Cyril Bennett on The Doris Day Show, Billy Erskine on The Colbys, and Soapie Smith on The Alaskans. He also performed regularly on The Don Knotts Show and The Betty White Show.
In the summer of 1955, Dehner was cast as Lieutenant Zetterquest in The Soldiers. He also acted in the episode "Crack-Up" of Gunsmoke. In that 1957 episode he portrays Nate Springer, an unpredictable, psychopathic gunman who coldly kills a small dog on the main street of Dodge City before he faces Marshall Dillon in a formulaic TV.
In the 1958 episode "Twelve Guns" on NBC's Western Cimarron City, Dehner portrays a prosperous area rancher whose outlaw son, played by Nick Adams, joins a gang that demands $50,000 from the citizens of Cimarron City.
In 1960, Dehner was cast as Major Randolph in the episode "Friend of the Family" on the CBS western The Texan, starring Rory Calhoun.
Dehner guest starred twice in the western TV series Bonanza: he played Captain Pender in the 1960 episode "The Mission" and he portrayed Jean Lafitte in the 1964 episode "The Gentleman from New Orleans".
Late in 1962, Dehner guest-starred as Dan Tabor in the episode "Echo of a Man" of the NBC western with a modern setting Empire, starring Richard Egan as rancher Jim Redigo. In 1961 and ‘64, Dehner starred in The Twilight Zone episodes “The Jungle” and "Mr. Garrity and the Graves".
Of all the television series on which Dehner performed over the years, his 12 appearances on the long-running series Gunsmoke perhaps showcased best the full range of his acting talents. Between 1955 and 1968, he portrayed a diverse cast of characters, such as a psychotic gunman in the episode "Cracked Up", a pathetic town drunk in "The Bottle", a dejected and childless farmer in "Caleb", a brain-damaged freight operator who undergoes a drastic personality change in "Ash", and a timid resident of Dodge City who gains fleeting celebrity after killing an outlaw in the episode "The Pariah". In 1966, as Morgan Starr, episode "One Spring Like Long Ago" that included Warren Oates, and as Marshall Eliazer Teague, both in the 90 minute TV western series The Virginian in the 1969 episode titled "Halfway Back from Hell".

Personal life and death

Dehner was married twice, the first time in 1941 to Roma Leonore Meyers, with whom he had two children. Three years after the couple's divorce in 1970, he wed Evelyn Severance. They remained together for 19 years, until his death.
In 1992, at the age of 76, Dehner died from complications of emphysema and diabetes in Santa Barbara, California. His interment was at Carpinteria Cemetery in Carpinteria, California.

Selected filmography