Maurice Cass

Maurice Cass (October 12, 1884 – June 8, 1954) was a character actor whose career spanned stage, film, and television. Born in Vilna, Russian Empire, in the territory that is now Vilnius, Lithuania, he immigrated to the United States at the age of six. At seventeen, he gained early professional experience touring the southern United States with a repertory company.

Cass maintained an active Broadway presence from 1913 to 1934, appearing in a range of productions that included both musicals and plays. His stage credits encompassed Caliban of the Yellow Sands, the musical My Little Friend, the musical The Little Cafe, the play The Man Who Never Died, and the play The Broken Chain, among others. Additional Broadway appearances included Faust (1928), The Novice and the Duke (1929), The Violet and One, Two, Three (1930), Overture (1930), Wonder Boy (1931), Wild Waves (1932), Broadway Boy (1932), and The Sky's the Limit (1934).

His slight build, frizzy hair, and pince-nez glasses made him a natural fit for roles as absent-minded professors and eccentric scientists in film. One such role placed him in Adventures of Superman, in which he portrayed the character who discovers the element kryptonite. He is particularly remembered for his recurring role as Professor Newton in the 1954 television science fiction series Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, which was subsequently adapted into the film Manhunt in Space.

Cass married Fay Elaine Geffen in 1910. He died of a heart attack at the age of 69 and is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.