Don Terry

Don Terry, born Donald Prescott Loker on August 8, 1902, in Natick, Massachusetts, was an American actor and philanthropist who worked in film, serials, and on Broadway. A 1927 graduate of Norwich University, he is best remembered for his lead roles in B films and serials during the 1930s and early 1940s, as well as for his 1939 Broadway appearance in Wuthering Heights.

Terry's entry into the film industry came about by chance. While visiting Los Angeles as a tourist, he stopped for lunch at Hollywood's Café Montmartre hoping to catch a glimpse of film stars. Fox screenwriter Charles Francis Coe was also at the restaurant and, struck by Terry's appearance, introduced himself and invited him to the Fox lot for a screen test. The test led directly to Terry being cast as the lead in the 1928 film Me, Gangster, based on Coe's own 1927 novel. Terry's New England accent, which he never fully shed, became a distinguishing characteristic of his on-screen presence, and he built a reputation for portraying what were described as typical clean-cut American heroes.

Columbia Pictures signed Terry as a potential successor to veteran action star Jack Holt, placing him alongside other tough-guy performers of the era such as Victor Jory, Paul Kelly, and Charles Quigley. His Columbia B-film credits include A Fight to the Finish (1937), Paid to Dance (1937), Who Killed Gail Preston? (1937), When G-Men Step In (1938), and Squadron of Honor (1938). He also entered the serial format with Columbia's The Secret of Treasure Island in 1938.

In 1939, Terry signed with Universal Pictures, appearing in an incidental role in the W. C. Fields comedy You Can't Cheat an Honest Man. That same year he made his Broadway debut in Wuthering Heights. Universal continued to cast him in a range of parts, including a scientist opposite Louise Allbritton in Danger in the Pacific (1942). He was one of three male leads in the western serial Overland Mail (1942), and his most prominent serial work came with the maritime adventures Don Winslow of the Navy (1942) and Don Winslow of the Coast Guard (1943), in which he played Naval Commander Don Winslow. Additional screen credits include Fugitives (1929), Border Romance (1929), Barnacle Bill (1941), Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943), and White Savage (1943), which proved to be his final film before he enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

Terry served in the Navy, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Commander and receiving the Purple Heart. He left military service in 1946 and did not return to acting. In 1941, prior to his enlistment, he had married Katherine Bogdanovich, a daughter of the founder of StarKist tuna and a 1940 graduate of the University of Southern California. The couple had two daughters. After the war, Terry abandoned his screen name and joined StarKist as vice president of public and industrial relations, retiring from the company in 1965.

Following his retirement, Terry and his wife established the Donald and Katherine Loker Foundation, through which they directed philanthropic efforts with particular emphasis on their respective alma maters. The couple served as long-standing board members at USC and contributed more than $30 million to the university over time. Their financial support helped establish USC's hydrocarbon research institute in 1978, which was renamed the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute in their honor in 1983. The Lokers were also longtime friends of Richard and Pat Nixon and supported the Nixon Library. Don Terry died on October 6, 1988, in Oceanside, California, at the age of 86. His widow continued the foundation's philanthropic work until her own death in 2008.