Joe Maross

Joseph Raymond Maross (February 7, 1923 – November 7, 2009) was an American actor who worked across stage, film, and television over a career spanning more than four decades. Born in Barnesboro, Pennsylvania, he served in the Marine Corps during World War II and was stationed in Hawaii. Following his military service, he enrolled at Yale University, where he earned a degree in theater arts in 1947.

Maross made his presence known on Broadway between 1950 and 1956, with credits that include The Innkeepers and Night. An earlier stage credit, Ladies Night in a Turkish Bath, dates to 1949. His film career began with the 1958 World War II drama Run Silent, Run Deep, and he subsequently appeared in Elmer Gantry, Zig Zag, Sometimes a Great Notion, The Salzburg Connection, and Rich and Famous.

Television became the primary arena for Maross's professional work, and he accumulated an extensive list of credits in series and made-for-television movies from the early 1950s through the mid-1980s. He appeared in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "A Personal Matter" in 1959 and had roles in three Perry Mason episodes: "The Case of the Crying Cherub" (1960), "The Case of the Lavender Lipstick," and "The Case of the Potted Planter" (1963). He was a central figure in two Twilight Zone episodes, "Third from the Sun" and "The Little People," and portrayed George Armstrong Custer in an episode of The Time Tunnel. His guest and supporting appearances extended to Behind Closed Doors, Mission: Impossible, The Fugitive, The Outer Limits, Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Invaders, Gunsmoke, The Virginian, Twelve O'Clock High, Kentucky Jones, Hawaii Five-O, the Mannix episode "Cry Silence," Hawkins, The Rockford Files, the Cannon episodes "Call Unicorn" and "Blood Lines," the Combat! episode "A Little Jazz," and the Bonanza episode "Escape to Ponderosa." In the early 1980s he played Captain Mike Benton in Code Red, a series that aired on ABC for one season from 1981 to 1982.

Beyond his performing work, Maross was a founding member of Projects 58, an acting, writing, and directing group based in Los Angeles, and held membership as a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He died of cardiac arrest at a convalescent hospital in Glendale, California, in November 2009 at the age of 86.