John Newland

John Newland was an American actor, director, television producer, and screenwriter, born on November 23, 1917, in Cincinnati, Ohio. The son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Newland, who operated small hotels in the Greater Cincinnati area, he attended Mt. Auburn Elementary School and Walnut Hills High School before embarking on a career in entertainment.

Newland began performing while still a teenager, first as an apprentice with the Stuart Walker Stock Company and later as part of the Vikings song-and-dance act in vaudeville. He subsequently relocated to New York City to study acting, where he performed in theaters alongside Milton Berle, and afterward toured vaudeville houses across the United States. His New York stage work included a Broadway appearance in 1955 in The Grand Prize.

During World War II, Newland served in the United States Army Air Corps. Following the war, he signed with Warner Bros., where his roles were limited to bit parts, beginning with his film debut in Adventures of Dusty Bates in 1946. By the early 1950s, he had shifted his focus to television, accumulating appearances across multiple programs including Studio One, The Philco Television Playhouse, Tales of Tomorrow, Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, and Schlitz Playhouse of Stars.

Newland moved into directing with episodes of Letter to Loretta in 1953 and subsequently directed episodes of Bachelor Father, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Thriller. His feature film directorial debut, That Night!, was released in 1957 and received two British Academy Film Award nominations. In 1959, he became the host and director of the paranormal television series One Step Beyond, which ran until 1961. He later hosted its short-lived follow-up, The Next Step Beyond, in 1978.

Among his other directing credits, Newland helmed an early episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in 1964 titled "The Double Affair," which was subsequently expanded with additional footage and released theatrically as The Spy with My Face. In 1966, he produced, directed, and wrote nearly all episodes of the spy series The Man Who Never Was, portions of which were assembled into an international theatrical release called Danger Has Two Faces. He also directed episodes of The Sixth Sense and Police Woman, as well as the 1967 Star Trek episode "Errand of Mercy."

Newland died of a stroke in Los Angeles on January 10, 2000, at the age of 82.