Robert Armstrong

Robert William Armstrong, born November 20, 1890, in Saginaw, Michigan, was an American actor whose career spanned Broadway, film, and television across five decades. After spending his early childhood in Bay City, Michigan, he relocated to Seattle around 1902 and later enrolled at the University of Washington, where he studied law and joined Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity. He died on April 20, 1973, in Santa Monica, California, of cancer, passing within sixteen hours of King Kong co-producer Merian C. Cooper.

Armstrong's stage work began in July 1915 with a one-act play titled The Bank's Half Million, written by his uncle Paul Armstrong. His Broadway career, which extended from 1919 to 1944, included the musical Honey Girl, the farce Sleep No More, and the play Sure Fire. He appeared in a 1919 production of Boys Will Be Boys, and his most prominent stage achievement came with a leading role in the comedy Is Zat So?, which ran on Broadway from January 1925 through July 1926.

His film career launched in 1927 with the Pathé silent drama The Main Event, and he went on to appear in 127 films between that year and 1964. Particularly prolific in the late 1920s and early 1930s, he completed nine films in 1928 alone. Armstrong became most widely recognized for portraying filmmaker Carl Denham in RKO Pictures' 1933 production of King Kong, delivering the film's concluding line: "It wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast." He reprised the role of Denham later that same year in the sequel Son of Kong. Armstrong bore a physical resemblance to King Kong producer and adventurer Merian C. Cooper, and Cooper cast him in multiple films as a figure broadly modeled on himself. The Most Dangerous Game was shot on the same jungle sets used for King Kong, filmed at night while King Kong was shot during the day, with Armstrong and Fay Wray appearing in both productions simultaneously.

In 1937, Armstrong starred in With Words and Music, released by Grand National Films. Universal Pictures' 1940 release Enemy Agent, a film centered on countering a Nazi spy ring, featured Armstrong alongside Helen Vinson, Richard Cromwell, and Jack La Rue. Two years later, he and Cromwell were paired again in the PRC production Baby Face Morgan. Armstrong returned to similar territory in 1949 with Mighty Joe Young, playing a Carl Denham-like character named Max O'Hara in another stop-motion giant gorilla fantasy produced by the same Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack team behind King Kong.

On television, Armstrong played Sheriff Andy Anderson on Rod Cameron's syndicated western series State Trooper. He made four guest appearances on the CBS series Perry Mason during its nine-year run: in 1958 as Walter Haskell in "The Case of the Sardonic Sergeant," in 1961 as the murder victim Captain Bancroft in "The Case of the Malicious Mariner," in 1962 as defendant Jimmy West in "The Case of the Playboy Pugilist," and in 1964 as murderer Phil Jenks in "The Case of the Accosted Accountant."

Armstrong was married four times. His first marriage, to Peggy Allenby, lasted from August 1920 until their divorce on April 17, 1925. He married Ethel Virah Smith on June 12, 1926, and that marriage ended in divorce on July 27, 1931. His third marriage, to Gladys Dubois, ran from January 10, 1936, to December 31, 1939. He married Claire Louise Frisbie on January 1, 1940, and remained married to her until his death on April 20, 1973.