Harry Bellaver

Harry Bellaver, born Enricho Bellaver on February 12, 1905, in Hillsboro, Illinois, was an American actor whose career spanned stage, film, and television from the 1930s through the 1980s. The son of Matteo and Maria Bellaver, he grew up in a working-class household; his father labored in the Hillsboro coal mines. Bellaver left school early and held various jobs before receiving a scholarship to Brookwood Labor College in Katonah, New York. He went on to spend eight years as a member of the Hedgerow Players of Rose Valley, Pennsylvania, before establishing himself on Broadway and beyond.

Bellaver's Broadway career ran from 1931 to 1972. He made his debut in the 1931 Group Theatre production of the play 1931, and over the following decades appeared in a wide range of productions. His early stage credits included Night Over Taos (1932), in which he played Diego; Merry-Go-Round (1932), where he took on the roles of Butch and Beachley; We, the People (1933) as Mike Ramsay; She Loves Me Not (1933) as Mugg Schnitzel; and Russet Mantle (1936) as Pablo. He also appeared in The World's Full of Girls (1943) as Sergeant Snyder, the comedy Mr. Sycamore, Johnny 2 X 4, and Tortilla Flat. His most prominent Broadway role came in the original 1946 production of Annie Get Your Gun, in which he played Chief Sitting Bull — a role he reprised in the 1958 and 1966 revivals of the musical.

As a film actor, Bellaver worked steadily from 1939 through the 1980s, frequently cast in working-class character roles. He played the ex-convict "Creeps" opposite William Powell and Myrna Loy in Another Thin Man (1939), and appeared as a Nazi-spying taxi driver in The House on 92nd Street (1945). He returned to the role of a cab driver — this time as a victim of a gangster — in Side Street (1950), and played Sam the Surgeon in the Bob Hope comedy The Lemon Drop Kid (1951). His credits also included the film adaptation of From Here to Eternity, Love Me or Leave Me (1955) with James Cagney and Doris Day, and The Old Man and the Sea (1958) with Spencer Tracy. Later film appearances included One Potato, Two Potato (1964), A Fine Madness (1966), Madigan (1968), The Hot Rock (1972), God Told Me To (1976), Blue Collar (1978), and Hero at Large (1980), starring John Ritter and Anne Archer. His final film role was that of an old miner in the horror film The Stuff (1985).

On television, Bellaver is best known for portraying Sgt. Frank Arcaro in the police drama Naked City, appearing in 136 of the series' 138 combined episodes between 1958 and 1963. His character, an older and measured detective, served as a counterpoint to the younger detectives played by James Franciscus and Paul Burke. He also appeared on the soap opera Another World as Ernie Downs.

During World War II, Bellaver served in the Special Services Unit of the U.S. Army, touring the front lines as a stage manager and actor in the USO Camp Show Over 21, which starred Vivian Vance and Philip Ober.

In his personal life, Bellaver married Gertrude Dudley Vaughan Smith, known as Dudley, and the couple had two daughters, Vaughan and Lee. He resided in Tappan, New York, and died of pneumonia on August 8, 1993, at Nyack Hospital in Nyack, New York. He was survived by his daughters — Lee Bellaver of Stone Ridge, New York, and theatrical casting director Vaughn Bellaver-Allentuck of East Hampton, Long Island — along with two grandsons, a granddaughter, and two great-granddaughters.