Brett Halsey
Encyclopedia
Brett Halsey is an American film actor, sometimes credited as Montgomery Ford. He is best known as the original John Abbott
on the soap opera
The Young and the Restless
, a role he held from May 1980 to March 1981, before being replaced by Jerry Douglas
.
Television studios. Whilst there he met Jack Benny
and his wife Mary Livingstone
who introduced him to the head of Universal Pictures
who placed him in a school with other aspiring actors for the studio.
In 1958, Halsey guest starred in the episode "The Imposter" of Richard Carlson's syndicated
western
television series Mackenzie's Raiders
, a fiction
al account of cavalry Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie
. Also in 1958, Halsey had the lead role of a life-saving sailor in an episode of Highway Patrol
. Halsey also guest starred in Wendell Corey
's Harbor Command
, a military drama about the United States Coast Guard
. In 1959, he had a co-starring role in the science-fiction film The Atomic Submarine
with Arthur Franz
and Dick Foran
.
From 1961–1962, Halsey starred with Barry Coe
and Gary Lockwood
in the ABC
television series Follow the Sun
, a story of two magazine
free-lance writer
s living in Honolulu, Hawaii
.
In 1961, Halsey won the Golden Globe Award
for "New Star of the Year". His Follow the Sun co-star, Barry Coe, had won the same honor in 1960. The award was discontinued in 1983.
Halsey played supporting and co-starring roles in Hollywood
, having appeared in such films as Return of the Fly
(1959) with Vincent Price
. By the early 1960s, he relocated to Italy
where he found himself in high demand in a score of adventurous films such as Seven Swords for the King or The Avenger of Venice, being often cast a swashbuckling
hero. he also appeared in a few Spaghetti Western
s and Eurospy films
. Halsey guest starred in the episode "Thin Ice" in 1959 of Paluzzi's NBC
espionage
series, Five Fingers
, starring David Hedison
.
He returned to the United States in the early 1970s and worked in film and television. He made many appearances in such serials as General Hospital
and Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, but also made supporting appearances in higher-profile films such as The Godfather Part III
. He also appeared as the captain of a luxury space liner in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
episode "Cruise Ship to the Stars".
Halsey worked with Italian horror director Lucio Fulci
on such films such as Touch of Death
and A Cat in the Brain
.
, who appeared in such films as The Sea Chase
with John Wayne
. They had two children, son Charles Oliver Hand (a.k.a. Rock Bottom of the notorious L.A. punk band Rock Bottom and the Spys) and daughter Tracy Leigh. They divorce
d in 1959.
From 1960 to 1962, he was married to Italain
actress Luciana Paluzzi
. They had one son, Christian, and co-starred in 1961 as a newlywed couple in Return to Peyton Place
. In 1964, Halsey married the popular German actress and singer Heidi Brühl
. They had two children, son Clayton Alexander Siegfried and daughter Nicole. They divorced in 1976.
Toward the end of the 1990s Halsey moved to Costa Rica
to teach acting for camera in San Jose. Currently Halsey resides in Laguna Hills, CA with his wife Victoria Korda (granddaughter of Alexander Korda
) where he spends most of his time writing and making the occasional film appearance.
On August 10, 2005 his son Rock Halsey was killed while serving time in a U.S. penitentiary.
John Abbott (The Young and the Restless)
John Abbott, Sr. is a fictional character on the soap opera The Young and the Restless. He is the patriarch of the Abbotts, one of the core families that was introduced to the show in 1980. The character was originated by Brett Halsey from May 1980 to March 1981...
on the soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
The Young and the Restless
The Young and the Restless
The Young and the Restless is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in a fictional Wisconsin town called Genoa City, which is unlike and unrelated to the real life village of the same name, Genoa City, Wisconsin...
, a role he held from May 1980 to March 1981, before being replaced by Jerry Douglas
Jerry Douglas (actor)
Jerry Douglas is an American television and film actor. For 25 years Jerry Douglas reigned in fictional Genoa City as patriarch John Abbott on the daytime television serial The Young and the Restless...
.
Career
Interested in acting since he was a child, Brett was employed as a page at CBSCBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
Television studios. Whilst there he met Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
and his wife Mary Livingstone
Mary Livingstone
Mary Livingstone , was an American radio comedienne and the wife and radio partner of comedy great Jack Benny . Enlisted almost entirely by accident to perform on her husband's popular program, she proved a talented comedienne...
who introduced him to the head of Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
who placed him in a school with other aspiring actors for the studio.
In 1958, Halsey guest starred in the episode "The Imposter" of Richard Carlson's syndicated
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
television series Mackenzie's Raiders
Mackenzie's Raiders
Mackenzie's Raiders is an American Western television series starring Richard Carlson that aired in syndication from 1958 until 1959. The series was narrated by Art Gilmore.-Synopsis:...
, a fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
al account of cavalry Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie
Ranald S. Mackenzie
Ranald Slidell Mackenzie was a career United States Army officer and general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, described by General Ulysses S. Grant as its most promising young officer...
. Also in 1958, Halsey had the lead role of a life-saving sailor in an episode of Highway Patrol
Highway patrol
A highway patrol is either a police unit created primarily for the purpose of overseeing and enforcing traffic safety compliance on roads and highways, or a detail within an existing local or regional police agency that is primarily concerned with such duties.Duties of highway patrols or traffic...
. Halsey also guest starred in Wendell Corey
Wendell Corey
Wendell Reid Corey was an American actor and politician.He was born in Dracut, Massachusetts, the son of Milton Rothwell Corey and Julia Etta McKenney . His father was a Congregationalist clergyman...
's Harbor Command
Harbor Command
Harbor Command is a syndicated adventure/drama television series starring Wendell Corey as Captain Ralph Baxter, a fictitious officer of the United States Coast Guard. The 39-episode Ziv program aired in black and white from October 11, 1957, to July 4, 1958. Casey Walters appeared in all episodes...
, a military drama about the United States Coast Guard
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...
. In 1959, he had a co-starring role in the science-fiction film The Atomic Submarine
The Atomic Submarine
The Atomic Submarine is a 1959 science fiction film starring Arthur Franz, Dick Foran and Brett Halsey, with John Hillard as the voice of the alien. The film was directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet, the script was adapted by Orville H. Hampton from a short story by Jack Rabin and Irving Block...
with Arthur Franz
Arthur Franz
Arthur Franz was a B-movie actor whose most notable role was as Lieutenant, Junior Grade H. Paynter, Jr. in The Caine Mutiny. He also appeared in Roseanna McCoy , Invaders from Mars , Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man and The Unholy Wife , among others...
and Dick Foran
Dick Foran
John Nicholas 'Dick' Foran was an American actor, known for his performances in western musicals and for playing supporting roles in dramatic pictures.-Life and career:...
.
From 1961–1962, Halsey starred with Barry Coe
Barry Coe
Barry S. Coe is an American actor who appeared in film and on television from 1956-1978. Many of his motion pictures parts were minor, but he co-starred in one series, Follow the Sun, which aired on ABC during the 1961-1962 season, and also played the recognizable "Mr...
and Gary Lockwood
Gary Lockwood
Gary Lockwood is an American actor probably best known for his iconic 1968 role as the astronaut Dr. Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey.-Early life:...
in the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
television series Follow the Sun
Follow the Sun (TV series)
Follow the Sun is an American drama series which ran for thirty episodes on the ABC television network from September 17, 1961, through April 8, 1962.-Synopsis:...
, a story of two magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
free-lance writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
s living in Honolulu, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
.
In 1961, Halsey won the Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
for "New Star of the Year". His Follow the Sun co-star, Barry Coe, had won the same honor in 1960. The award was discontinued in 1983.
Halsey played supporting and co-starring roles in Hollywood
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
, having appeared in such films as Return of the Fly
Return of the Fly
Return of the Fly is the first sequel to the 1958 horror film The Fly. It was released in 1959, and directed by Edward Bernds. Unlike the preceding film, Return of the Fly was shot in black and white. The film was followed by another sequel in 1965, Curse of the Fly.-Plot:Phillipe Delambre is...
(1959) with Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
. By the early 1960s, he relocated to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
where he found himself in high demand in a score of adventurous films such as Seven Swords for the King or The Avenger of Venice, being often cast a swashbuckling
Swashbuckler
Swashbuckler or swasher is a term that emerged in the 16th century and has been used for rough, noisy and boastful swordsmen ever since. A possible explanation for this term is that it derives from a fighting style using a side-sword with a buckler in the off-hand, which was applied with much...
hero. he also appeared in a few Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...
s and Eurospy films
Eurospy films
Eurospy films is a nickname for the genre of European films that imitated and spoofed the James Bond 007 series of films. The Eurospy genre was highly prolific in the years from the end of 1964 when Goldfinger was released until 1967 following the release of You Only Live Twice or the demise of...
. Halsey guest starred in the episode "Thin Ice" in 1959 of Paluzzi's NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
series, Five Fingers
Five Fingers (TV series)
For other uses see 5 Fingers Five Fingers is an NBC adventure/drama series set in Europe during the Cold War loosely based on the 1952 film 5 Fingers, starring James Mason and Danielle Darrieux...
, starring David Hedison
David Hedison
Albert David Hedison, Jr. is an Armenian-American film, television, and stage actor. He was billed as Al Hedison in his early film work. In 1959, when he was cast in the role of Victor Sebastian in the short-lived espionage television series Five Fingers, NBC insisted that he change his name...
.
He returned to the United States in the early 1970s and worked in film and television. He made many appearances in such serials as General Hospital
General Hospital
General Hospital is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running American soap opera currently in production and the third longest running drama in television in American history after Guiding Light and As the World Turns....
and Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, but also made supporting appearances in higher-profile films such as The Godfather Part III
The Godfather Part III
The Godfather Part III is a 1990 American gangster film written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola, and directed by Coppola. It completes the story of Michael Corleone, a Mafia kingpin who tries to legitimize his criminal empire...
. He also appeared as the captain of a luxury space liner in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (TV series)
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century is an American science fiction adventure television series produced by Universal Studios. The series ran for two seasons between 1979–1981, and the feature-length pilot episode for the series was released as a theatrical film several months before the series aired....
episode "Cruise Ship to the Stars".
Halsey worked with Italian horror director Lucio Fulci
Lucio Fulci
Lucio Fulci was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is perhaps best known for his directorial work on gore films, including Zombie and The Beyond , although he made films in genres as diverse as giallo, western, and comedy...
on such films such as Touch of Death
Touch of Death
The Death Touch refers to any martial arts technique that can kill using seemingly less than lethal force targeted at specific areas of the body....
and A Cat in the Brain
A Cat in the Brain
Cat in the Brain is a 1990 Italian horror-slasher film written and directed by Italian horror filmmaker Lucio Fulci....
.
Personal life
In 1954, he married Miss Germany 1952 and actress Renate HoyRenate Hoy
Renate Hoy, also credited as Renate Huy and Erika Nordin, was an actress. After winning the title of Miss Nürnberg, she was crowned Miss Germany of 1952...
, who appeared in such films as The Sea Chase
The Sea Chase
The Sea Chase is a 1955 World War II drama film starring John Wayne and Lana Turner. It was directed by John Farrow and written by James Warner Bellah. The plot is basically a nautical cat and mouse game, with Wayne determined to get his German freighter home during the first few months of the war,...
with John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
. They had two children, son Charles Oliver Hand (a.k.a. Rock Bottom of the notorious L.A. punk band Rock Bottom and the Spys) and daughter Tracy Leigh. They divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
d in 1959.
From 1960 to 1962, he was married to Italain
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
actress Luciana Paluzzi
Luciana Paluzzi
Luciana Paluzzi is an Italian actress. She is best known for playing SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe in the fourth James Bond film, Thunderball.-Career:...
. They had one son, Christian, and co-starred in 1961 as a newlywed couple in Return to Peyton Place
Return to Peyton Place (film)
Return to Peyton Place is a 1961 drama film produced by Jerry Wald and directed by José Ferrer. The screenplay by Ronald Alexander is based on the 1959 novel Return to Peyton Place by Grace Metalious...
. In 1964, Halsey married the popular German actress and singer Heidi Brühl
Heidi Brühl
Heidi Rosemarie Brühl was a German singer and actress who came to prominence as a young teenager and had a prolific career in film and television...
. They had two children, son Clayton Alexander Siegfried and daughter Nicole. They divorced in 1976.
Toward the end of the 1990s Halsey moved to Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
to teach acting for camera in San Jose. Currently Halsey resides in Laguna Hills, CA with his wife Victoria Korda (granddaughter of Alexander Korda
Alexander Korda
Sir Alexander Korda was a Hungarian-born British producer and film director. He was a leading figure in the British film industry, the founder of London Films and the owner of British Lion Films, a film distributing company.-Life and career:The elder brother of filmmakers Zoltán Korda and Vincent...
) where he spends most of his time writing and making the occasional film appearance.
On August 10, 2005 his son Rock Halsey was killed while serving time in a U.S. penitentiary.