Ed Bakey

William Edward Bakey was born on November 13, 1925, in Havre de Grace, Maryland, and relocated to Baltimore at a young age. He completed his secondary education at Baltimore City College in 1943 and took his first professional acting steps in 1945 at the Hilltop Theatre. He subsequently moved to New York, where he performed at the Provincetown Playhouse.

Before establishing himself as a screen actor, Bakey worked in broadcasting, serving as an announcer at the television station WBAL-TV and as a director at a radio station. In 1957, he appeared on the CBS television station WJZ-TV, portraying a clown character named "Pop-Pop" on The Jack Wells Show. During this period he also took on the role of folk singer Eddie Greensleeve on a program hosted by Mike Wallace.

Bakey's Broadway career brought him to the stage in 1966, when he was cast as George Beenstock in Walking Happy. The following year he transitioned back to television, appearing in the western series Death Valley Days. Over the course of his career he guest-starred in a wide range of television programs, among them Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, The F.B.I., The Big Valley, Bonanza, Star Trek, Night Gallery, Hill Street Blues, One Day at a Time, The Streets of San Francisco, Cannon, Cimarron Strip, Dundee and the Culhane, The Guns of Will Sonnett, and Police Woman.

His film work included The White Buffalo, Zapped!, Darktown Strutters, The Evil, Heaven with a Gun, For Pete's Sake, The Baltimore Bullet, and Telefon. In 1973 he appeared in The Sting, playing the character Granger. His final film credit was the 1984 production The Philadelphia Experiment.

Bakey died on May 4, 1988, in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 62.