Gage Clark

Gage Clarke (also credited as Gage Clark; March 3, 1900 – October 23, 1964) was an American character actor whose work spanned stage, television, and film across four decades. Born in Vassar, Michigan, he was the only child of Metta L. (née Gage) and George D. Clarke, a bookkeeper who later worked as a bank cashier. Clarke registered for the military draft in September 1918 in Vassar, though World War I concluded before he entered service. A 1920 federal census record places him still living with his parents and without employment, but by 1929 he had moved to New York City and was appearing in Broadway productions.

Clarke's stage career began in earnest in late 1929, when he played Geoffry in A Ledge at the Assembly Theatre. He went on to appear in The Venetian Glass Nephew and Devil in the Mind in 1931, followed by The Inside Story in 1932, directed by A. H. Van Buren at the National Theatre. In the 1933–1934 season he played Buck Buckner in Jezebel, starring Miriam Hopkins at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Abel Green of Variety, while critical of the play's script, named Clarke among the production's standout performers. Clarke continued working steadily on Broadway throughout the 1930s in productions including Lost Horizons, Parnell, Many Mansions, The Monocled Man, Tomorrow's a Holiday, Escape This Night, Summer Night, Great Lady, and I Know What I Like. In the 1937 production of Many Mansions, described as a dignified invective against the church, he took on the central role of Reverend Roger Crandall and again received strongly favorable notices.

When the United States entered World War II, Clarke was 41 years old and still eligible for military induction. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942 and served as a private in Company B of the 487th Port Battalion, Transportation Corps, a unit deployed to Europe to support the Allied invasion of France in 1944. After the war he returned to acting, and in 1950 and 1951 he appeared on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre in The Happy Time, playing Dr. Gagnon. Variety's review of that production's opening night singled out his performance, describing him as expertly comic in the role of a querulous, disheveled sawbones.

During the latter half of his career, Clarke shifted his focus increasingly toward television. His earliest credited television work dates to 1949 and includes the sitcom The Hartmans, the pilot episode of the anthology series Suspense, and six installments of Kraft Television Theatre. Over the following fifteen years he appeared as a supporting player across dozens of series. During the 1952–1953 broadcast season of the sitcom Mister Peepers, starring Wally Cox, he portrayed the fastidious school official Mr. Bascomb. He also appeared in Lux Video Theatre, The Real McCoys with Walter Brennan, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone episode "One More Pallbearer," and the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Nine Dolls."

Among his most prominent television work was his role in the Maverick episode "Greenbacks Unlimited," in which he played timid gambler Foursquare Farley opposite James Garner and John Dehner. Clarke appeared in seven Maverick episodes in total, playing different characters, including "Rage for Vengeance," "Gun-Shy," and "Cruise of the Cynthia B" alongside Garner as Bret Maverick, and "Maverick at Law," "Dade City Dodge," and "One of Our Trains is Missing" with Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick. The episode "Gun-Shy" was a spoof of Gunsmoke, a series on which Clarke himself appeared in approximately a dozen episodes between 1956 and 1963, most frequently in the recurring roles of hotel clerk Mr. Dobie and bank manager Mr. Botkin in Dodge City. His final television appearance was in the 1964 episode "The Last Girl from Gemmorah" on the Western series Destry with John Gavin, which aired on ABC seven months before his death.

Clarke's film career began relatively late. His first notable screen roles came in 1956 with two psychological thrillers: Nightmare, opposite Edward G. Robinson, in which he played the villain, and The Bad Seed with Nancy Kelly, in which he portrayed Reginald Tasker, a mystery writer and amateur criminologist. His final film, the Walt Disney production The Monkey's Uncle with Annette Funicello, featured him as a college president. That film was released nationally in August 1965, ten months after his death.

Clarke never married. He died of lung cancer on October 23, 1964, at the Motion Picture Country Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 64. His obituaries noted that he had no immediate survivors. He is buried at Riverside Cemetery in Vassar, Michigan, the same cemetery where his parents are interred.