Victor Jory

Victor Jory (November 23, 1902 – February 12, 1982) was a Canadian-American actor who worked across stage, film, radio, and television over a career spanning several decades. Born in Dawson City, Yukon, to American parents, he trained at the Martha Oatman School of the Theater in Los Angeles. During his military service he became the boxing and wrestling champion of the U.S. Coast Guard, a physical distinction he maintained throughout his life.

Before establishing himself on Broadway, Jory toured with theater troupes, including a July 1929 appearance at Elitch Theatre in Bartlett Cormack's The Racket, where he played the Assistant District Attorney. He made his Hollywood debut in 1930 and went on to appear in more than 150 films. His Broadway career extended from 1943 to 1950 and included starring roles in The Devil's Disciple and Therese, as well as appearances in Yellow Jack, Androcles and the Lion, and John Gabriel Borkman.

Early in his screen career Jory was cast in romantic leads, but his distinctive dark eyes contributed to his being increasingly sought for villainous and sinister parts. Among his most recognized film roles are the malevolent Injun Joe in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), the opportunistic overseer Jonas Wilkerson in Gone with the Wind (1939), Oberon in Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) alongside James Cagney, Dick Powell, and Olivia de Havilland, and Lamont Cranston in the 1940 serial The Shadow. Between 1941 and 1943 he co-starred in seven Hopalong Cassidy films, generally in villainous roles, with the exception of a lumberjack part in Riders of the Timberline (1941). He also played Helen Keller's father in The Miracle Worker, a production for which co-stars Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke each won Academy Awards. In 1960 he appeared opposite Anna Magnani in The Fugitive Kind, adapted from a Tennessee Williams play.

Jory's radio work included starring in the series Dangerously Yours, which launched in mid-1944 and was retitled Matinee Theater in October of that year, running through April 1945. Each episode dramatized a well-known literary work; the premiere, broadcast July 2, 1944, adapted Alfred Noyes's poem "The Highwayman." In 1946 he narrated Tubby the Tuba, a children's recording that sold over one million copies and was inducted into the National Recording Registry in 2005. He also narrated Bumpo the Ballerina and recorded numerous stories for Peter Pan Records.

On television, Jory's most sustained role came in the syndicated police drama Manhunt, in which he played Detective Lieutenant Howard Finucane opposite Patrick McVey's police reporter Ben Andrews across 78 episodes from 1959 to 1961. His many guest appearances included the role of Southern Baptist pastor George Washington Truett in a 1957 episode of Crossroads, Deacon Lee in a 1962 two-part episode of The New Breed, and a peace envoy in the 1968 High Chaparral episode "The Peacemaker." In the private-eye series Mannix he recurred as Stefan Mannix, the title character's widowed Armenian-American father, in episodes broadcast in 1969 and 1971. In 1978 he guest starred as an aging FBI agent in The Rockford Files episode "The Attractive Nuisance."

Beyond performing, Jory wrote two plays and served on the faculty of the University of Utah, teaching acting in the Department of Theater. He endowed the Victor Jory Scholarship for junior and senior students in that department. In 1964 he testified before the United States Congress as part of "Project Prayer," arguing in favor of a constitutional amendment to restore school prayer. In 1960 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6605 Hollywood Blvd.

Jory married actress Jean Inness in 1928, and the couple had two children, Jon and Jean. Jon Jory led the Actors Theater of Louisville for 31 years before becoming a professor of drama at the University of Washington in 2000. Jean Jory Anderson served as public-relations director of the theater department at Utah State University. Victor Jory died of a heart attack on February 12, 1982, in Santa Monica, California, at the age of 79.