Hal Riddle

William Harold Riddle, known professionally as Hal Riddle, was born on December 11, 1919, in Fulton, Kentucky, and died on June 17, 2009, in Woodland Hills, California. A Broadway, film, and television actor, Riddle built his career primarily as a character actor, accumulating supporting roles across several decades from the 1950s through the 1980s.

Riddle's path toward acting began in childhood, when at age eleven he received an autographed picture from silent film star Billie Dove. Before pursuing the profession, he worked as a salesman for the National Cash Register Company in New York City. In 1946 he left that position to join the Hayloft Summer Theater in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he started as a secretary and was eventually given small parts. During his time there he shared living quarters with a then-unknown Jack Lemmon. Riddle subsequently trained at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse, where his fellow students included Grace Kelly and Steve McQueen.

He made his Broadway debut in 1950 in Mister Roberts, and his Broadway credits include the 1963 production Have I Got a Girl for You!. Riddle also moved into film work, relocating to Hollywood to appear in the 1958 picture Onionhead.

In 2001, Riddle donated a collection of more than 1,700 Hollywood memorabilia items to Murray State University in Kentucky, his alma mater. The collection, assembled over roughly eighty years, included original movie posters, autographed pictures, and letters spanning more than seven decades.

Riddle retired from acting in 1995 and moved to the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital. There he formed a personal friendship with Billie Dove, the same actress whose autographed picture had first sparked his interest in acting decades earlier. When Dove died, Riddle delivered her eulogy in 1998.