Frank Lovejoy

Frank Andrew Lovejoy Jr. was born on March 28, 1912, in the Bronx, New York, and grew up in New Jersey. His father, Frank Andrew Lovejoy Sr., was a furniture salesman originally from Maine, and his mother, Nora, was born in Massachusetts to Irish immigrant parents. Lovejoy went on to build a career spanning Broadway, radio, film, and television before his death on October 2, 1962, from a heart attack in his sleep at the Warwick Hotel in New York City.

Lovejoy's work in radio was extensive and varied. He portrayed Broadway Harry on the Gay Nineties Revue and appeared on the 1930s crime drama Gang Busters. In radio soap operas, he took on multiple recurring roles: Dr. Christopher Ellerbe in Valiant Lady, Sam Foster in This Day Is Ours, Brad Forbes on Brave Tomorrow, and Larry Halliday in Bright Horizon. He voiced the title character on the syndicated series The Blue Beetle in 1940 and appeared in several episodes of The Whistler. During the first season of This Is Your FBI, he served as narrator. He starred as John Malone in The Amazing Mr. Malone and appeared as boxer Rory Malone in the March 20, 1949, episode of Pat Novak for Hire. In the early 1950s, he headlined the newspaper drama Night Beat, and in the late 1950s he appeared in episodes of Suspense.

In film, Lovejoy worked primarily in supporting roles throughout the 1940s and 1950s, though he secured several lead performances. In 1949, he appeared in Stanley Kramer's war film Home of the Brave, and in 1950 he took the lead in Try and Get Me, playing a struggling, unemployed man who turns to crime to support his family. That same year he appeared in Breakthrough. In 1951, he starred in I Was a Communist for the FBI alongside Ron Hagerthy, Paul Picerni, and Philip Carey, and appeared with Joan Crawford in Goodbye, My Fancy. He is perhaps most closely associated with the 1953 film noir The Hitch-Hiker, directed by Ida Lupino. His war film credits continued with Joseph H. Lewis's Retreat, Hell! in 1952, which depicted the United States Marine Corps' withdrawal from the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War, and Beachhead in 1954, in which he again played a Marine sergeant. In 1955, he appeared in Strategic Air Command alongside James Stewart.

On television, Lovejoy starred in two short-run series, Man Against Crime and Meet McGraw. Among his final television appearances was the episode "County General," which aired March 18, 1962, on the ABC series Bus Stop, in which he appeared opposite Marilyn Maxwell in the role of Grace Sherwood. That same season he appeared on the ABC crime drama Target: The Corruptors!, centered on a New York City reporter's efforts to expose organized crime.

Lovejoy's Broadway career extended from 1934 to 1960 and included appearances in several productions. He appeared in Censored, A Sound of Hunting, and the comedy The Snark Was a Boojum, and starred in both Man Bites Dog and The Best Man. At the time of his death, he and his wife, actress Joan Banks, whom he had married in 1940, were performing together in a New Jersey production of Gore Vidal's The Best Man. The couple had two children, a daughter named Judith and a son named Stephen.