Phillip Pine

Phillip Pine (July 16, 1920 – December 22, 2006) was an American actor, writer, director, and producer whose career spanned Broadway, film, and television. Born in Hanford, California, he was the son of Portuguese immigrants whose original family name, Pinheiro, was changed at Ellis Island. His father, Miguel Pine, operated a general store and meat market in downtown Hanford. The family relocated to Santa Cruz when Pine was five years old.

Pine served in the United States Army during World War II, and following his discharge he returned to California, where he earned a degree in theatrical arts from UCLA under the G.I. Bill. His stage career brought him to Broadway between 1943 and 1954, where his credits included Army Play-by-Play, Lower North, All You Need Is One Good Break, One Bright Day, and See the Jaguar, among other productions.

His television work was extensive and varied. Pine portrayed John Wesley Hardin in two separate episodes of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, first in the 1955 episode "John Wesley Hardin" and again in the 1957 episode "The Time for All Good Men." That same year he appeared on Gunsmoke as Vint, a cheating card dealer turned murderer, in the episode "Moon." He played a confessed bank robber in "Image of Sally," the ninth episode of Peter Gunn, which first aired on November 17, 1958. His three appearances on Wagon Train included "The Ben Courtney Story," "The Esteban Zamora Story" in 1959, and "The Dr. Swift Cloud Story" in 1960, in which he played a character named Straight Arrow. In 1959 he also took on the role of Kid Curry in the Tales of Wells Fargo episode of the same name.

Pine appeared in two episodes of Adventures of Superman, "The Mystery of the Broken Statues" and "The Case of the Talkative Dummy," playing a theater usher involved in a robbery gang in the latter. On The Untouchables, he portrayed mobster Jack Zuta in the third episode, "The Jake Lingle Killing," and returned to the series in 1962 for "The Whitey Steele Story." He also appeared in two episodes of The Twilight Zone, "The Four of Us Are Dying" and "The Incredible World of Horace Ford," as well as in The Fugitive. His genre work continued with the second episode of The Outer Limits, "The Hundred Days of the Dragon."

In 1964, Pine guest starred on Combat! as Private Steve Cantrell in the third-season episode "Birthday Cake" and made an appearance as Phillip Stewart in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Wednesday Woman." The following year he played a World War II submarine captain stranded in an underwater cave alongside four other survivors in the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode "And Five of Us Are Left." His 1967 television appearances included an episode of The Invaders titled "Genesis" and an episode of Rawhide titled "Incident at Dangerfield Dip."

Among his most recognized television roles, Pine played Colonel Green, a genocidal Earth warlord, in the Star Trek third-season episode "The Savage Curtain," which aired in 1969. He also appeared in Hawaii Five-O in two separate episodes, including "Full Fathom 5" in the first season and a later episode, "Which Way Did They Go?," in which he played a Japanese man. Additional television credits include an episode of Barnaby Jones titled "Murder in the Doll's House," which aired on March 25, 1973, a season-five episode of Kojak called "Cry for the Children" in which he played Eddie Creagan, a season-three episode of Ironside titled "Alias Mrs. Braithwaite," and Perry Mason. On the film side, Pine played a gangster known only as Mark in Irving Lerner's film noir Murder by Contract.