Everett Sloane

Everett H. Sloane was born in Manhattan on October 1, 1909, to Nathaniel I. Sloane and Rose (Gerstein) Sloane. His interest in acting began at age seven, when he played Puck in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Manhattan's Public School 46. He attended the University of Pennsylvania for two years before leaving in 1927 to join Jasper Deeter's Hedgerow Theatre repertory company, and made his New York stage debut the following year. After the stock market crash of 1929 reduced his salary as a stockbroker's runner by half, Sloane turned to radio to supplement his income, eventually performing in thousands of programs. He married Lillian (Luba) Herman, a stage and radio actress, on January 4, 1933, in Manhattan.

Sloane made his Broadway debut in 1935, playing Rosetti the agent in George Abbott's comedy Boy Meets Girl. His subsequent Broadway credits included Black-Eyed Susan, Room Service, How I Wonder, A Bell for Adano, and the drama Men in Shadow, with his stage career spanning from 1935 to 1954. He also appeared in Native Son in 1941 and directed the melodrama The Dancer in 1946.

His radio career brought him into contact with Orson Welles, and Sloane became part of the Mercury Theatre company. He recorded one program with The Mercury Theatre on the Air before becoming a regular player when the show was picked up by a sponsor and retitled The Campbell Playhouse. He was also a member of The March of Time repertory company, a radio news dramatization series whose cast included Kenny Delmar, Arlene Francis, Agnes Moorehead, Art Carney, Ray Collins, and Richard Widmark, among others. In the 1940s, Sloane was a frequent guest on Inner Sanctum Mystery and The Shadow, and appeared in The Mysterious Traveler episode "Survival of the Fittest."

Sloane's association with Welles carried over into film. In 1941, he played Mr. Bernstein in Citizen Kane, Welles's first feature. He did not appear in The Magnificent Ambersons in 1942, but rejoined Welles and fellow Mercury Theatre alumni Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, and Ruth Warrick in Journey into Fear in 1943. In 1947, he starred as villainous lawyer Arthur Bannister in The Lady from Shanghai, which Welles produced, directed, and starred in. Two years later, Sloane played Mario Belli, an assassin in Renaissance-era Italy, opposite Welles's Cesare Borgia in Prince of Foxes. In 1950, he portrayed a doctor treating paraplegic World War II veterans in The Men, which marked Marlon Brando's film debut. He co-starred with Tony Curtis and Piper Laurie in the 1951 Universal production The Prince Who Was a Thief, playing a thief who adopts and raises a baby. In 1958, he appeared in The Gun Runners, a remake of To Have and Have Not in which he took the role originated by Walter Brennan.

Sloane worked extensively in television across multiple decades. In 1950, he portrayed Vincent van Gogh in The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse production "The Life of Vincent Van Gogh." He starred in both the film and television versions of Rod Serling's Patterns and appeared in the first season of The Twilight Zone in the episode "The Fever." In November 1955, he starred in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Our Cook's a Treasure." He appeared on The Joseph Cotten Show in the 1956 episode "Law Is for the Lovers" alongside Inger Stevens, and performed readings from The Great Gatsby on an NBC program devoted to F. Scott Fitzgerald in August 1955. From 1957 to 1958, he appeared in Walt Disney's Zorro series as Andres Felipe Basilio in the "Man from Spain" episodes. On March 7, 1959, he guest-starred in the Cimarron City episode "The Ratman" alongside star John Smith, and later that year appeared in "Stage Stop," the premiere episode of Smith's second NBC Western series, Laramie. He played Tate Bradley in the Wanted: Dead or Alive episode "Reckless," which aired November 6, 1959. In 1961, he appeared in an episode of The Asphalt Jungle. In 1962, he guest-starred on The Andy Griffith Show as Jubal Foster in "The Keeper of the Flame" and also wrote unused lyrics for the show's theme song, "The Fishin' Hole." That same year, he appeared as a San Francisco attorney in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Poison Pen Pal." In 1963, he guest-starred on The Dick Van Dyke Show as writer Henry Walden in "I'm No Henry Walden" and starred in the Gunsmoke episode "Quint's Trail" as Cyrus Neff. In the early 1960s, he voiced the title character of The Dick Tracy Show across 130 cartoons, and beginning in 1964 provided character voices for the animated series Jonny Quest. He also starred in the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode "Hot Line." In 1953, he starred as Captain Frank Kennelly in the CBS radio crime drama 21st Precinct.

Sloane died by suicide on August 6, 1965, at the age of 55, taking an overdose of barbiturates out of fear that glaucoma would cause him to go blind. His cremated remains are interred at Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles.