Charles McGraw

Charles McGraw, born Charles Crisp Butters on May 10, 1914, in Des Moines, Iowa, was an American actor whose work spanned stage, film, and television across more than three decades. His parents were Beatrice (née Crisp) and Francis P. Butters, and federal census records show the family later relocated to Akron, Ohio, where his father worked as a salesman and service manager. McGraw graduated from high school in Akron in January 1932 and completed one semester of college before entering the workforce. His early employment included working aboard a freighter and dancing in nightclubs.

Before establishing himself in film, McGraw built his stage foundation through theatrical road companies and dozens of off-Broadway productions. That theatrical background eventually led to Broadway, where he appeared in 1963 in Brigadoon. Originally from New York, New York, McGraw maintained a connection to the stage throughout a career that extended well beyond it.

McGraw made his film debut in 1942 with an uncredited role in The Undying Monster at Fox. That same year he appeared in Tonight We Raid Calais, and in 1943 he accumulated credits including They Came to Blow Up America, Two Tickets to London, Destroyer, Corvette K-225, and The Mad Ghoul. The Impostor and The Seventh Cross followed in 1944. His parts during this period remained small, but his profile began to rise with The Killers in 1946, in which he and William Conrad played the two hitmen who terrorize a small-town diner while hunting Burt Lancaster's character. The role marked his first notable screen appearance and established his association with the film noir genre, where his distinctive vocal qualities and physical presence made him a recognizable figure.

Through the late 1940s McGraw accumulated a steady string of credits, including unbilled appearances in The Farmer's Daughter and Brute Force, both in 1947, along with smaller roles in The Big Fix, The Long Night, Roses Are Red, The Gangster, and the Roy Rogers Western On the Old Spanish Trail. He continued working in smaller capacities in T-Men for director Anthony Mann, Berlin Express, Hazard, Blood on the Moon, and Reign of Terror, before earning third billing in the noir The Threat in 1949. He played a cop in Mann's Side Street in 1950 and a gangster in Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town in 1951.

McGraw's transition to leading man came with RKO's Armored Car Robbery in 1950, directed by Richard Fleischer. He followed that with a gangster role in His Kind of Woman in 1951 and the lead in Roadblock that same year, playing an insurance investigator who turns to theft. Fleischer again cast him as the lead in The Narrow Margin in 1952. He played a sergeant in One Minute to Zero and War Paint, and a villain in Thunder Over the Plains in 1954. Among his later film roles, he appeared as Kirk Douglas's gladiator trainer in the epic Spartacus in 1960, during the filming of which Douglas accidentally broke McGraw's jaw in an action sequence. He also played Perry Smith's father in In Cold Blood in 1967 and appeared as a character called "The Preacher" in the science fiction film A Boy and His Dog.

McGraw's television career was equally substantial. He starred as Mike Waring in the 39-episode syndicated series Adventures of the Falcon during the 1954–55 season, in which the character was reimagined as a Cold War secret agent. He also took on Humphrey Bogart's role of Rick Blaine in the first television adaptation of Casablanca in 1955. In 1960, he played Army scout Tom Barrows in the episode "The Scout" on The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, and in 1962 he portrayed Civil War veteran Sgt. Wesley Kiles in a Wagon Train episode. His television appearances extended to The Untouchables, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Adam-12. In 1963, the same year he appeared on Broadway in Brigadoon, McGraw played Dr. Simon Oliver in the pilot of the medical drama Diagnosis: Danger. He also had the role of Captain Hughes in The Smith Family, and in 1973 appeared in Hawkins: Death and the Maiden, the pilot TV movie for the James Stewart series Hawkins. Later in his career he worked as a voice actor, providing narration for several productions.

McGraw married Freda Choy Kitt in 1938, and the couple had one daughter before divorcing in 1968. On February 8, 1960, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6927 Hollywood Boulevard in recognition of his contributions to the entertainment industry. He died on July 29, 1980, at his home in Studio City, California, after slipping in the bathroom and falling through a glass shower door. The fall severed his brachial artery, and he bled to death before paramedics arrived. He was 66 years old.