William Bendix

William Bendix (January 14, 1906 – December 14, 1964) was an American actor born in Manhattan, the only child of Oscar and Hilda Bendix. His uncle was composer, conductor, and violinist Max Bendix. He began his working life as a grocer before the Great Depression ended that career, and in the early 1920s he served as a batboy for the New York Yankees, during which time he witnessed Babe Ruth hit more than 100 home runs at Yankee Stadium. He was eventually dismissed after fulfilling Ruth's pregame request for a large order of hot dogs and soda, which left Ruth unable to play that day.

Bendix launched his acting career at age 30 through the New Jersey Federal Theatre Project. His Broadway work spanned from 1937 to 1959 and included Run Sheep Run, Miss Swan Expects, The Trial of Dr. Beck, The Time of Your Life, and the musical Take Me Along. He was a native of New York, New York. His stage role in The Time of Your Life was that of Officer Krupp; when the William Saroyan play was adapted for film in 1948 starring James Cagney, Bendix appeared in the production again but this time as Nick the bartender, a role played on screen opposite Cagney while Broderick Crawford took over the Krupp part Bendix had originated on stage.

Bendix made his film debut in 1942, frequently playing warm-hearted gangsters, detectives, and servicemen. His early screen work included a supporting role in the film noir The Glass Key (1942), alongside Brian Donlevy, Alan Ladd, and Veronica Lake. He drew considerable attention for his portrayal of Gus, a wounded American sailor, in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944), and he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Wake Island. He took the top-billed lead in The Hairy Ape (1944), based on the Eugene O'Neill play and co-starring Susan Hayward and Dorothy Comingore. He reunited with Ladd and Lake in The Blue Dahlia (1946), and ultimately appeared alongside Ladd in ten films total; both men died in 1964. Bendix also played Sir Sagramore opposite Bing Crosby in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949), participating in the trio "Busy Doing Nothing," and portrayed Babe Ruth in The Babe Ruth Story (1948).

His most enduring role originated in radio. Producer Irving Brecher cast Bendix as Chester A. Riley after seeing him play a rugged blue-collar character in the Hal Roach film The McGuerins from Brooklyn (1942). Brecher reworked a failed script originally conceived for Groucho Marx, relocating the setting to Brooklyn, removing comedic flourishes, and retitling the project The Life of Riley. Bendix played Riley as a wing riveter at the fictional Cunningham Aircraft plant in California, and his repeated exclamation "What a revoltin' development this is!" became a widely recognized catchphrase of the 1940s. The radio program ran from 1944 through 1951. When the show moved to television in 1949, a prior film commitment prevented Bendix from reprising the role, and Jackie Gleason played Riley for a single season beginning in October of that year. Despite the season earning an Emmy Award, the show was canceled. By 1953, Bendix was available and took over the television version himself; that iteration ran until 1958, long enough for the character to become a grandfather. Bendix also starred in a 1949 film adaptation of the radio program.

His television work extended well beyond Riley. In 1958 he played the lead in Rod Serling's "The Time Element," a time-travel story about a man who travels back to 1941 and fails to warn Honolulu of the attack on Pearl Harbor; the episode's success contributed to the development of Serling's later series The Twilight Zone. That same year Bendix appeared on The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, and returned for a second appearance on October 1, 1959, in which he and Ford performed a comedy skit about a safari. Also in 1958, he appeared in the NBC series Wagon Train, playing a ship captain who shanghaied Major Adams, Bill Hawks, and Charlie Wooster. On November 16, 1959, he appeared on NBC's color broadcast of The Steve Allen Plymouth Show alongside Jack Kerouac. He starred in all 17 episodes of the NBC Western series Overland Trail (1960) as Frederick Thomas "Fred" Kelly, and guest-starred in a 1961 episode of Mister Ed that functioned as a backdoor pilot for a sitcom that was not picked up.

In the fall of 1964, a CBS situation comedy co-starring Bendix and Martha Raye was scheduled to air, but the network declined to broadcast it citing concerns about Bendix's health. Bendix filed a lawsuit seeking $2.658 million, asserting that the decision damaged his career and that he was capable of fulfilling the terms of the agreement. The case was settled out of court. Bendix died on December 14, 1964, in Los Angeles at age 58, from complications stemming from a chronic stomach ailment that led to malnutrition and ultimately lobar pneumonia. A requiem mass was held on December 17, 1964, at Our Lady of Grace Church in Encino, California, and he was interred at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, Los Angeles.

Bendix had married a childhood friend, Theresa Stefanotti, on October 22, 1927. The marriage lasted until his death 37 years later. The couple had one daughter, Lorraine, and adopted another, Stephanie.