Peter Whitney
| Peter Whitney | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 24, 1916 Long Branch, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Santa Barbara, California, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Heart attack |
| Years active | 1941 - 1972 |
| Spouse(s) | Adrienne Whitney (3 children) Barbara Engle (2 children) |
Peter Whitney (May 24, 1916 – March 30, 1972) was an American actor in film and television. He was born Peter King Engle in Long Branch, New Jersey. Tall and corpulent, he played brutish villains in many Hollywood films in the 1940s and 1950s.
Career
From the late 1950s, Whitney played character roles in many television series, including nine appearances on ABC's The Rifleman. One of his The Rifleman roles was in "Mail Order Groom" (1960), in which he portrays John Jupiter, a man of great physical strength who must exert patience while he is harassed by two townsmen, played by John Anderson and Sandy Kenyon, who had quarreled with Whitney's intended spinster bride, Isabel Dent, played by Alice Backes (1923–2007).[1]
In the 1958-1959 season, Whitney had a co-starring role as Buck Sinclair, a former sergeant of the Union Army, in all thirty-nine episodes of the ABC western series, The Rough Riders.
Whitney was a guest star too on the ABC/Warner Brothers western series Colt .45. He played the part of Ralph in the 1958 episode "Mantrap", with Don "Red" Barry cast as Percival.[2] He played United States Secret Service agent Gunnerson in the episode "Savage Hills" on the ABC/WB series, Maverick. In 1960, in the episode "Surface of Truth" of another ABC/WB western series, Lawman, Whitney played Lucas Beyer, a crude white man who has lived for ten years with the Cheyenne Indians. Beyer accidentally kills his wife in a fit of rage and runs into Laramie, Wyoming, to escape the wrath of her pursuing brother. Marshal Dan Troop (John Russell) uses an old Indian "truth" method to try to determine what happened.[3]
In the 1960 season premiere, "The Longest Rope", of the ABC/WB western series Cheyenne, Whitney was cast as the cruel, corrupt and entrenched Sheriff Hugo Parma of the community of High Point, where series protagonist Cheyenne Bodie (Clint Walker) had lived for a time in his early teens. In the story line, Bodie returns for a sentimental visit to High Point, only to find himself a successful but reluctant write-in candidate for sheriff against Parma. Donald May and Merry Anders also guest starred in the episode as young adults from Bodie's past time in High Point.[4]
Whitney made three guest appearances on the CBS courtroom drama series Perry Mason. In 1961, he played Roger Gates in "The Case of the Pathetic Patient." In 1962, he played prison escapee Stefan 'Big Steve' Jahnchek in "The Case of the Stand-in Sister," and in 1965 he played Capt. Otto Varnum in "The Case of the Wrongful Writ."
Whitney also appeared on such series as The Public Defender, Gunsmoke,The Adventures of Superman, City Detective, Fury, My Friend Flicka ("A Case of Honor"), The Californians, Sheriff of Cochise, Behind Closed Doors, Northwest Passage, Tate, Tombstone Territory (episode "Apache Vendetta"), Johnny Ringo, Riverboat, Bourbon Street Beat, The Alaskans, Overland Trail (as Governor Sutcliff in episode "First Stage to Denver"), The Rebel, The Islanders, Adventures in Paradise, Straightaway, Wagon Train, The Untouchables, Bonanza, The Monkees, Petticoat Junction (as Jasper Tweedy, in the 1969 episode: "Sorry Doctor, I Ain't Taking No Shots"), The Beverly Hillbillies, Rawhide (episode "Incident of the Music Maker"), and Hawaii Five-O.
Whitney played a French partisan fighter named Massine in the 1963 episode "Thunder from the Hill" of ABC's military drama, Combat!.
On December 30, 1965, Whitney was cast as Judge Roy Bean in the episode "A Picture of a Lady" on the syndicated television series, Death Valley Days, then hosted by Ronald W. Reagan. Francine York played Lily Langtry, with Paul Fix as Bean's friend, Doc Lathrop.[5]
His final role was as a grave robber in writer Rod Serling's Night Gallery. Whitney died of a heart attack shortly afterwards at the age of fifty-five in Santa Barbara, California.
Partial filmography
- Underground (1941)
- Blues in the Night (1941)
- Whistling in Dixie (1942)
- Destination Tokyo (1943)
- Action in the North Atlantic (1943)
- Mr. Skeffington (1944)
- Murder, He Says (1945)
- Three Strangers (1946)
- Northwest Outpost (1947)
- The Big Heat (1953)
- The Great Sioux Uprising (1953)
- The Sea Chase (1955)
- Man from Del Rio (1956)
- Buchanan Rides Alone (1958)
- The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962)
- The Sword of Ali Baba (1965)
- In the Heat of the Night (1967)
- The Great Bank Robbery (1969)
- The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)
References
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