Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Jr. (January 15, 1913 – March 10, 1998) was an Emmy Award-nominated American actor. Bridges starred in popular television series, and appeared in more than 150 films.
Biography
Early life
Bridges was born in San Leandro, California, the son of Harriet Evelyn (née Brown) and Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Sr., who was involved in the California hotel business and once owned a cinema. Bridges graduated from Petaluma High School in 1931. He studied political science at UCLA, where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter. He also met his future wife there, Dorothy Dean Simpson; they married in 1938 on St. Pete's Beach at sunrise.
Career
Bridges made his Broadway debut in 1939 in a production of Shakespeare's Othello. He made a few film appearances before enlisting in the U.S. Coast Guard. Following World War II, he returned to film acting. He was blacklisted briefly in the 1950s after he admitted to the House Un-American Activities Committee that he had once been a member of the Actors Lab, a group with links to the Communist party. He resumed working after being cleared by the FBI, finding his greatest success in television.
Bridges gained wide recognition as Mike Nelson, the main character in the television series Sea Hunt, which ran from 1958-1961. Following that success, he starred in the eponymous anthology The Lloyd Bridges Show, which included appearances by his sons Beau and Jeff. Bridges was offered the role of Captain Kirk on Star Trek before the role went to William Shatner. Additionally, he was a regular cast member in the Rod Serling western series The Loner (which lasted one season from 1965 to 1966), and in the two NBC failures San Francisco International Airport (1970/71) and Joe Forrester (1975/76). Later, he appeared in Paper Dolls (1984) and Capital News (1990), both for ABC, and again with Harts of the West (1993), this time for CBS. He played the role of Commander Cain in the Battlestar Galactica two-part episode "The Living Legend".
Bridges played significant roles in several popular mini-series, including Roots, How the West Was Won, and The Blue and the Gray. For more than forty-five years, Bridges was a frequent guest star on television series. He earned two Emmy Award nominations four decades apart. The first came in 1957 for an episode of The Alcoa Hour. Then he was nominated again in 1998 for his role as Izzy Mandelbaum on Seinfeld.
Bridges appeared in more than 150 films. He started as a contract performer for Columbia Pictures, appearing in classics such as High Noon, Little Big Horn, and Sahara. By the end of his career, he was a staple of parody films such as Airplane!, Hot Shots!, and Jane Austen's Mafia!.
Personal life
Lloyd Bridges and his son Beau.
A world federalist, Bridges once said, “The devastation caused by war and the pollution of our environment knows no boundaries. Only an effective world government could provide sufficient law and have the power to control these destructive forces".[1] He was also involved in several organizations, including the American Oceans Campaign and Heal the Bay, a Los Angeles-based group.
Bridges died of natural causes at age 85 on March 10, 1998. He was the father of actors Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges and the grandfather of Jordan Bridges.
An episode of Seinfeld ("The Burning") was dedicated in memory of Lloyd Bridges. He had played the character of Izzy Mandelbaum in the episodes "The English Patient" and "The Blood". Bridges' last film Jane Austen's Mafia! was also dedicated to him.
Filmography
Features
- Freshman Love (1936)
- Dancing Feet (1936)
- The Lone Wolf Takes a Chance (1941)
- They Dare Not Love (1941)
- The Medico of Painted Springs (1941)
- The Son of Davy Crockett (1941)
- Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
- Our Wife (1941)
- Harmon of Michigan (1941)
- Two Latins from Manhattan (1941)
- You Belong to Me (1941)
- Three Girls About Town (1941)
- The Royal Mounted Patrol (1941)
- Sing for Your Supper (1941)
- Honolulu Lu (1941)
- Harvard, Here I Come! (1941)
- West of Tombstone (1942)
- Blondie Goes to College (1942)
- Cadets on Parade (1942)
- Shut My Big Mouth (1942)
- Canal Zone (1942)
- Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1942)
- North of the Rockies (1942)
- Alias Boston Blackie (1942)
- The Wife Takes a Flyer (1942)
- Sweetheart of the Fleet (1942)
- Riders of the Northland (1942)
- Flight Lieutenant (1942)
- Atlantic Convoy (1942)
- The Talk of the Town (1942)
- A Man's World (1942)
- The Spirit of Stanford (1942)
- The Daring Young Man (1942)
- Boston Blackie Goes Hollywood (1942)
- Pardon My Gun (1942)
- Underground Agent (1942)
- Counter-Espionage (1942) (uncredited) (waiter)
- Commandos Strike at Dawn (1943)
- City Without Men (1943)
- One Dangerous Night (1943)
- Destroyer (1943)
- Passport to Suez (1943)
- Hail to the Rangers (1943)
- Sahara (1943)
- The Heat's On (1943)
- There's Something About a Soldier (1943)
- Crime Doctor's Strangest Case (1943)
- Once Upon a Time (1944)
- She's a Soldier Too (1944)
- Louisiana Hayride (1944)
- The Master Race (1944)
- Saddle Leather Law (1944)
- Secret Agent X-9 (1945)
- Strange Confession (1945)
- A Walk in the Sun (1945)
- Abilene Town (1946)
- Miss Susie Sagle's (1946)
- Canyon Passage (1946)
- Ramrod (1947)
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Short Subjects
- The Great Glover (1942)
- They Stooge to Conga (1943)
- A Rookie's Cookie (1943)
- His Wedding Scare (1943)
- Mr. Whitney Had a Notion (1949)
- My Daddy Can Lick Your Daddy (1962)
- The World of Inner Space (1966)
- I Am Joe's Heart (1987) (voice)
Television work
References
External links
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