Norman Leavitt

Norman Leavitt was an American actor born in Lansing, Michigan, whose career spanned stage, film, and television from the 1930s through the late 1970s. He died in December 2005 at the age of 92 at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Solvang, California, with dehydration and dementia listed as causes of death. His body was cremated.

Leavitt's professional career began on Broadway in 1935, when he appeared as a wedding guest in the play How Beautiful With Shoes. He made his film debut in 1941 and spent much of the following two decades working in uncredited and supporting roles on screen. His 1946 film appearance in The Harvey Girls was among his earlier credited parts. Throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s he accumulated a substantial list of film credits, including The Ten Commandments, Harvey, The Long, Long Trailer, Living It Up, The Kentuckian, Ride Vaquero!, Stars and Stripes Forever, Somebody Loves Me, The Merry Widow, O. Henry's Full House, California Passage, Wabash Avenue, The Inspector General, Showdown at Boot Hill, Valerie, Fury at Gunsight Pass, and Teenage Monster, among others.

Leavitt began working in television in 1952 with an appearance in The Adventures of Kit Carson. In 1958 he took on the recurring role of Ralph, a dimwitted jail handyman, in the western series Trackdown. As the 1960s and 1970s progressed, television became the primary focus of his work. His credits across those decades included Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, Lost in Space, The Wild Wild West, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Perry Mason, The Fugitive, The Addams Family, Wagon Train, Leave It to Beaver, The Rifleman, Mister Ed, The Jack Benny Program, Peter Gunn, Death Valley Days, Tales of Wells Fargo, Mayberry R.F.D., The Guns of Will Sonnett, Ironside, and The Andy Griffith Show, on which he appeared in multiple different roles. Leavitt retired from acting in 1978 following an appearance in the television series Quincy, M.E.