Robert Shayne

Robert Shayne, born Robert Shaen Dawe on October 4, 1900, in Yonkers, New York, was an American actor whose professional career spanned more than six decades. He is perhaps best remembered for his recurring role as Police Inspector William "Bill" Henderson on the 1950s television series Adventures of Superman. He died on November 29, 1992, of lung cancer at the Motion Picture Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, and was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills. He was 92 years old.

Shayne was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Grosvenor Dawe; his father was among the founders of the United States Chamber of Commerce. He had one brother, Allen Shaen Dawe. Shayne left Boston University before completing his senior year so that his brother could attend college. He subsequently settled for a time in Birmingham, Alabama, where he wrote advertising copy for a women's clothing store during the day and performed with a stock theater company at night. When the store closed, he transitioned to acting full-time. Prior to that, he had worked as a reporter at the Illustrated Daily Tab in Miami, Florida, and his early stage experience was gained with repertory companies in Alabama, including the Birmingham Players.

Shayne's Broadway career extended from the early 1930s through 1942. His first appearance on Broadway came by 1931 in The Rap, and he went on to accumulate credits in productions including Yellow Jack in 1934, The Cat and the Canary in 1935, and Whiteoaks in 1938, the latter featuring Ethel Barrymore. His subsequent Broadway work included Beverly Hills, Five Alarm Waltz, The Land Is Bright, and Without Love in 1942, which starred Katharine Hepburn.

Shayne began his film career in 1934, appearing in two features that year. In 1942 he signed as a contract actor with Warner Bros., where he took on numerous character roles. His film work included a series of Warner Bros. featurettes known as the Santa Fe Trail series, among them Wagon Wheels West, as well as a role as a mad scientist in the 1953 horror film The Neanderthal Man. He appeared in a small but pivotal part as a scientist in the 1953 science fiction film Invaders from Mars, and he can be seen briefly in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, seated in a hotel bar booth where his character encounters Cary Grant's character shortly before the latter is kidnapped. Later in his career, Shayne was cast as a blind newspaper vendor in the television series The Flash.

On Adventures of Superman, Shayne's appearances as Inspector Henderson were initially sporadic, in part because his second wife, Mary Sheffield, had accused him of associations with Communism, bringing him under HUAC scrutiny and resulting in a brief blacklisting. As the series progressed into its color episodes, his presence became increasingly central, and he ultimately appeared as a regular on the program.

Shayne married three times. His first marriage, to Mary Crouch in 1925, produced one daughter and ended in divorce in 1933. That same year he married Mary Sheffield, with whom he also had one daughter; that marriage ended in 1943. Also in 1943, he married Elizabeth McDonald, and the couple had two children together. He and McDonald remained married until his death in 1992.