Max Showalter

Max Gordon Showalter was born on June 2, 1917, in Caldwell, Kansas, to Elma Roxanna Showalter, a music teacher, and Ira Edward Showalter, who worked in oil, banking, and farming. As a toddler, he accompanied his mother to local theaters where she played piano for silent films, an experience that sparked his interest in performing. He went on to become an actor, composer, pianist, and singer whose career spanned film, television, and stage, with Broadway appearances stretching from 1939 to 1971.

Showalter built his early stage experience through productions at the Pasadena Playhouse before making his Broadway debut in Knights of Song. His subsequent Broadway credits included Make Mine Manhattan, Show Boat, Harrigan 'n Hart, and The Grass Harp, in which he starred. He also spent two years performing in the traveling production of This Is the Army. His most sustained stage role came as Horace Vandergelder in Hello, Dolly!, a part he performed more than 3,000 times opposite Carol Channing, Betty Grable, and Ethel Merman. In addition to performing, Showalter worked as a book writer for Broadway productions.

During World War II, Showalter served in the U.S. Army as an entertainer with the Special Services division. In the late 1940s, 20th Century Fox signed him as a featured contract player, and studio head Darryl F. Zanuck renamed him Casey Adams, a name he used professionally for a period before reclaiming his own. His feature film debut came in Always Leave Them Laughing in 1949. His second film, the 1952 biopic With a Song in My Heart, included a small role as a vaudeville performer in which he and David Wayne sang "Hoe that Corn," a song Showalter had written. The following year he appeared in Niagara alongside Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten, playing the husband of Jean Peters' character, and he made a cameo as a Life magazine photographer in Monroe's 1956 film Bus Stop.

Billed as Casey Adams, Showalter appeared as Ward Cleaver in "It's a Small World," the original pilot for Leave It to Beaver, which aired as an episode of the Studio 57 anthology series; Hugh Beaumont replaced him when the series went to air. He made six appearances on Perry Mason across multiple years, playing different characters including Carl Reynolds in a 1958 episode and murder victim Burt Stokes in 1960. His television work also included The Loretta Young Show, Navy Log, The Twilight Zone — where he played piano player Pat Riley in the 1961 episode "It's a Good Life" — The Lucy Show, Gunsmoke, Bewitched, Dr. Kildare, Kojak, The Bob Newhart Show, and The Andy Griffith Show, among many others. He appeared on more than 1,000 television programs over the course of his career.

After reclaiming his birth name in the 1960s, Showalter appeared in major studio productions including Elmer Gantry (1960), The Music Man (1962), and How to Murder Your Wife (1965). In the 1979 film 10, he played a pastor whose hobby was writing songs. He was a regular cast member on the short-lived 1980 television series The Stockard Channing Show, and his final screen appearance was in John Hughes's Sixteen Candles in 1984.

As a composer, Showalter wrote the music for Little Boy Blue, which opened at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood on September 11, 1950, and wrote the musical Go for Your Gun, which premiered in Manchester, England, in 1963. In 1956, recording under the name Casey Adams, he released Casey Adams Plays and Sings Max Showalter Songs on Foremost Records. He was also among the artists featured on a 1988 CBS Special Products album, The Secret Garden, drawn from the musical of that title.

Show business columnist Hedda Hopper reported in 1963 that Showalter had sold 139 paintings and was preparing his first one-man show. In the 1950s, he returned to Caldwell, Kansas, to care for his 15-year-old sister, who had been orphaned when their parents died in an automobile accident, a loss that followed the earlier death of his brother Robert in a separate car wreck.

In 1984, Showalter retired from acting and relocated to an 18th-century farmhouse in Chester, Connecticut, near where he had filmed It Happened to Jane in 1959. There he became involved with local musical theater, including the Ivoryton Playhouse, and produced, directed, wrote, and narrated the Christmas musical Touch of a Child. He spent much of his remaining time painting oil miniatures and maintained a close friendship with actress Katharine Hepburn, who lived in nearby Old Saybrook. Max Showalter died of cancer on July 30, 2000, in Middletown, Connecticut, at the age of 83.