John Melvin Bleifer

John Melvin Bleifer was born on July 26, 1901, in Zawiercie, Poland, and went on to become an American actor whose career spanned from the silent film era through the mid-1980s. Over the course of his professional life, Bleifer accumulated well over 100 credits across feature films, film serials, television series, miniseries, and Broadway productions. He died on January 24, 1992, in Los Angeles County, California, and was interred at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California, beside his wife, Grace, who had preceded him in death in 1989.

Bleifer's stage work included appearances on Broadway between 1932 and 1945, among them productions of The Cherry Orchard and Clear All Wires. His screen career gained momentum in 1933 with the widespread adoption of sound pictures, and his European accent proved a professional asset, enabling him to portray characters of various nationalities throughout his career.

The 1940s brought Bleifer a steady stream of film work, ranging from small and frequently uncredited parts to more substantial featured roles. He appeared without credit in Archie Mayo's Four Sons (1940), the war film Paris Calling (1942), the Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour comedy They Got Me Covered (1943), Mr. Lucky starring Cary Grant, For Whom the Bell Tolls starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, and the 1946 comedy Without Reservations. Among his credited roles in the decade were Pedro in the 1940 swashbuckler The Mark of Zorro starring Tyrone Power, Oscar Zimmerman in the spy drama Waterfront, and Franz Leiber in the Bowery Boys comedy Smugglers' Cove (1948). He also appeared in the serials Perils of Nyoka (1942) and Secret Service in Darkest Africa (1943) during this period.

As the 1950s brought the rise of television, Bleifer shifted a significant portion of his activity to the new medium while continuing to take film roles. On screen, he played Jailbreak Jimmy in Lew Landers' State Penitentiary (1950) and Jake Haberman in the 1957 police drama Chain of Evidence. Smaller film appearances during the decade included the Humphrey Bogart noir Sirocco (1951), The Juggler (1953) directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Kirk Douglas — a performance that drew praise from The New York Times — the 1955 musical Kismet, the Bowery Boys comedy Spy Chasers (1955), the Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse musical Silk Stockings (1957), and Dmytryk's 1959 remake of The Blue Angel. His television credits in the 1950s included Dangerous Assignment (1952), Navy Log (1956), I Love Lucy (1956), The Count of Monte Cristo (1956), The Adventures of Jim Bowie (1956), Shirley Temple's Storybook (1958), Perry Mason (1958), Peter Gunn (1959), and Rawhide (1959).

Bleifer remained active across the following three decades, accumulating television appearances on Death Valley Days (1960), The Lawless Years (1961), The Untouchables (1961), Dr. Kildare (1962–63), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1966), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969), Adam-12 (1971), Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974), S.W.A.T. (1975), Police Woman (1976), Little House on the Prairie (1979), The White Shadow (1979), and Highway to Heaven (1984). He also appeared in the television miniseries QB VII in the role of Ben-Dan. His film work during this stretch included the tobacconist in the 1962 comedy If a Man Answers, the Steward in The Hook starring Kirk Douglas, a role in W.C. Fields and Me (1976), Mishka in F.I.S.T. (1978) starring Sylvester Stallone, and one of the Rabbis in Robert Aldrich's The Frisco Kid starring Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford. Bleifer's final screen performance came in 1986, when he played Hyman in Inside Out starring Elliott Gould.