Edward Andrews
Encyclopedia
Edward Andrews was an American actor, one of the most recognizable character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...

s on television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 and film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

s between the 1950s and the 1980s. His stark white hair, portly build and horn-rimmed glasses
Horn-rimmed glasses
Horn-rimmed glasses are a type of eyeglasses. Originally made out of either horn or tortoise shell, for most of their history they have actually been constructed out of thick plastics designed to imitate those materials...

 added to the type of roles he received, as he was often cast as an ornery boss, a cagey businessman, or a strict disciplinarian of some type.

Life and career

He was born in Griffin, Georgia
Griffin, Georgia
Griffin is a city in and the county seat of Spalding County in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 23,643.-Geography:Griffin is located at ....

, the son of an Episcopal
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...

 minister, and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

, Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...

 and Wheeling, West Virginia
Wheeling, West Virginia
Wheeling is a city in Ohio and Marshall counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia; it is the county seat of Ohio County. Wheeling is the principal city of the Wheeling Metropolitan Statistical Area...

. As a child, he attended Pittsburgh's Nixon Theatre and would nab a balcony seat so as to catch a good view of the 'headliners'. At age 12, he did a walk-on in a stock theatre production which featured James Gleason
James Gleason
James Austin Gleason was an American actor born in New York City. He was also a playwright and screenwriter.-Career:...

 and he was 'hooked' on an acting career.

He attended the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

, and at age 21, made his stage debut in 1926, progressing to Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 by 1935. During this period, Andrews starred in the short-lived but very well-received military drama "So Proudly We Hail" in the lead role opposite Richard Cromwell
Richard Cromwell (actor)
Richard Cromwell, born LeRoy Melvin Radabaugh , was an American actor. His family and friends called him Roy, though he was also professionally known and signed autographs as Dick Cromwell. Cromwell's career was at its pinnacle with his work in Jezebel with Bette Davis and Henry Fonda and again...

. In 1936, Andrews debuted in the film Rushin' Art. However, it was not until 1955 that he appeared in his second film. He was cast as the subversive and corrupt character of Rhett Tanner, head of a knock-them-off political machine, in The Phenix City Story
The Phenix City Story
The Phenix City Story is a film noir directed by Phil Karlson and written by Daniel Mainwaring and Crane Wilbur. The drama features John McIntire, Richard Kiley, among others.-Plot:...

.

Films

While Andrews' film acting career began in earnest in his forties, he was consistently typecast as a grandfatherly type, and thus he is most strongly associated with these roles in later films. Among his roles are those that are soft and friendly though Andrews was equally adept at portraying sleazy businessman types or sinister bureaucrats and officials.

Well-known films in which Andrews acted include Send Me No Flowers
Send Me No Flowers
Send Me No Flowers: a 1964 American comedy film, directed by Norman Jewison and starring Rock Hudson, Doris Day, and Tony Randall. After Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back, it is the third and final film in which Hudson, Day and Randall starred together.The screenplay by Julius J...

, with Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...

 and Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...

, Advise and Consent
Advise and Consent
Advise and Consent is a 1959 political novel by Allen Drury that explores the United States Senate confirmation of controversial Secretary of State nominee Robert Leffingwell who is a former member of the Communist Party...

, The Harder They Fall
The Harder They Fall
The Harder They Fall is a film noir directed by Mark Robson, featuring Humphrey Bogart in his last film before his death in 1957. The film was written by Philip Yordan and based on the 1947 novel by Budd Schulberg....

, The Young Savages
The Young Savages
The Young Savages is a 1961 crime drama film directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Burt Lancaster, and written by Edward Anhalt from a novel by Evan Hunter....

, Elmer Gantry
Elmer Gantry (film)
Elmer Gantry is a 1960 drama film about a con man and a female evangelist selling religion to small town America. Adapted by director Richard Brooks, the film is based on the 1927 novel of the same name by Sinclair Lewis and stars Burt Lancaster and Jean Simmons.Lancaster won an Academy Award for...

, in which he was memorable as George F. Babbitt
Babbitt (novel)
Babbitt, first published in 1922, is a novel by Sinclair Lewis. Largely a satire of American culture, society, and behavior, it critiques the vacuity of middle-class American life and its pressure on individuals toward conformity....

, The Absent-Minded Professor
The Absent-Minded Professor
The Absent-Minded Professor is a 1961 black-and-white Walt Disney Productions film based on the short story A Situation of Gravity, by Samuel W. Taylor....

and Son of Flubber
Son of Flubber
Son of Flubber is the 1963 black-and-white sequel to the Walt Disney children's movie comedy The Absent-Minded Professor , also starring Fred MacMurray as a scientist who has perfected a high-bouncing substance, Flubber that can levitate an automobile and cause athletes to bounce into the sky...

, in both of which he played the Defense Secretary, and Avanti!
Avanti!
Avanti! is a 1972 American/Italian comedy film produced and directed by Billy Wilder. The film starred Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills. The screenplay by Wilder and I.A.L...

, in which he was a very convincing agent of the State Department. Among his other film credits are: Summertime (1955) with Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...

; Tension at Table Rock (1956); The Harder They Fall
The Harder They Fall
The Harder They Fall is a film noir directed by Mark Robson, featuring Humphrey Bogart in his last film before his death in 1957. The film was written by Philip Yordan and based on the 1947 novel by Budd Schulberg....

(1956) with Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

; Tea and Sympathy
Tea and Sympathy
Tea and Sympathy is a 1953 stage play in three acts by Robert Anderson.-Broadway premiere:It received its premiere on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on September 30, 1953 in a production by The Playwrights' Company, directed by Elia Kazan and designed by Jo Mielziner. The play starred...

(1956); Three Brave Men (1957); The Young Doctors
The Young Doctors (film)
The Young Doctors is a 1961 film directed by Phil Karlson and starring Ben Gazzara, Fredric March, Dick Clark, Ina Balin, Eddie Albert, Phyllis Love, Aline MacMahon, George Segal and Dolph Sweet. The film is based on the 1959 novel "The Final Diagnosis" by Arthur Hailey...

(1961); Youngblood Hawke
Youngblood Hawke
Youngblood Hawke is a novel by American writer Herman Wouk about the rise and fall of a young writer. It is based on the life of Thomas Wolfe.-Plot summary:...

(1964); Good Neighbor Sam
Good Neighbor Sam
Good Neighbor Sam is a 1964 American comedy movie co-written and directed by David Swift and starring Jack Lemmon and Romy Schneider.It was based on the novel by Jack Finney. The screenplay was the motion picture debut of James Fritzell and Everett Greenbaum, who had written many American...

(1964); The Glass Bottom Boat
The Glass Bottom Boat
The Glass Bottom Boat is an 1966 American romantic comedy movie directed by Frank Tashlin; it is also considered by some people to be musical entertainment. This movie features Doris Day and Rod Taylor as the main entertainers, with assistance from actors Arthur Godfrey and Paul Lynde...

(1966); Tora! Tora! Tora!
Tora! Tora! Tora!
is a 1970 American-Japanese war film that dramatizes the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, to the extent these facts were known at the time of production. The film was directed by Richard Fleischer and stars an all-star cast, including So Yamamura, E.G...

(1970) as Admiral Harold R. Stark; How to Frame a Figg
How to Frame a Figg
How to Frame a Figg is a 1971 Universal comedy about a bungling bookkeeper's assistant, Hollis Alexander Figg in the Dalton city hall, who finds himself framed for embezzlement...

(1971); Charley and the Angel
Charley and the Angel
Charley and the Angel is a 1973 Disney family/comedy film set in an unidentified small city in the 1930s Depression-era Midwestern United States and starring Fred MacMurray in one of his final film appearances...

(1973); and The Seniors
The Seniors
The Seniors is a 1978 comedy film.Four college seniors open a bogus sex clinic, which unexpectedly mushrooms into a multi-million dollar business. Featuring a young Dennis Quaid in one of his earliest roles and Alan Reed in his final film appearance.In 1978, it was given an MPAA rating of R...

(1978). In 1984, he played the character of Howard Baker in John Hughes' Sixteen Candles
Sixteen Candles
Sixteen Candles is a 1984 American film starring Molly Ringwald, Michael Schoeffling and Anthony Michael Hall. It was written and directed by John Hughes.- Plot :...

. He also appeared in Gremlins
Gremlins
Gremlins is a 1984 American horror comedy film directed by Joe Dante, released by Warner Bros. The film is about a young man who receives a strange creature—called a Mogwai—as a pet, which then spawns other creatures who transform into small, destructive, evil monsters. It was followed by a sequel,...

, filmed later the same year, which would be his final film.

Television

He also guested on many television series including: Thriller 1960's Television show hosted by Boris Karloff, Goodyear Television Playhouse
Goodyear Television Playhouse
The Goodyear Television Playhouse produced live television dramas from 1951 to 1957 during the "Golden Age of Television".Sponsored by Goodyear, the hour-long anthology series was telecast Sundays at 9pm on NBC...

, Hands of Mystery, The United States Steel Hour
The United States Steel Hour
The United States Steel Hour is an anthology series which brought hour-long dramas to television from 1953 to 1963. The television series and the radio program that preceded it were both sponsored by the United States Steel Corporation....

, Justice
Justice (1954 TV series)
Justice is an NBC half-hour drama television series about attorneys of the Legal Aid Society of New York, which aired from April 8, 1954 to March 25, 1956. In the 1954-1955 season, Justice starred Dane Clark as Richard Adams and Gary Merrill as Jason Tyler. In the 1955-1956 season, William Prince...

, Cheyenne, The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...

, The Eleventh Hour
The Eleventh Hour (1962 TV series)
The Eleventh Hour is an American medical drama about psychiatry starring Wendell Corey, Jack Ging, and Ralph Bellamy, which aired sixty-two new episodes plus selected rebroadcasts on NBC from October 3, 1962, to September 9, 1964.-Series premise:...

, Route 66, Naked City
Naked City (TV series)
Naked City is a police drama series which aired from 1958 to 1963 on the ABC television network. It was inspired by the 1948 motion picture of the same name, and mimics its dramatic "semi-documentary" format....

, Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....

, Rawhide
Rawhide (TV series)
Rawhide is an American Western series that aired for eight seasons on the CBS network on Friday nights, from January 9, 1959 to September 3, 1965, before moving to Tuesday nights from September 14, 1965 until January 4, 1966, with a total of 217 black-and-white episodes...

, Bonanza
Bonanza
Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...

, The F.B.I., The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies
The Beverly Hillbillies is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for nine seasons on CBS from 1962 to 1971, starring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer, Jr....

, Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son is an American sitcom, based on the BBC's Steptoe and Son, that ran on the NBC television network from January 14, 1972, to March 25, 1977....

, Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee , to write, edit, and anthologize detective fiction.The fictional Ellery Queen created by...

, The Invaders
The Invaders
The Invaders, a Quinn Martin Production , is an ABC science fiction television program created by Larry Cohen that ran in the United States for two seasons, from January 10, 1967 to March 26, 1968...

, Bewitched
Bewitched
Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...

, Hawaii Five-O
Hawaii Five-O
Hawaii Five-O is an American police procedural drama series produced by CBS Productions and Leonard Freeman. Set in Hawaii, the show originally aired for twelve seasons from 1968 to 1980, and continues in reruns. The show featured a fictional state police unit run by Detective Steve McGarrett,...

, Charlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels is a television series about three women who work for a private investigation agency, and is one of the first shows to showcase women in roles traditionally reserved for men...

and The Bob Newhart Show
The Bob Newhart Show
The Bob Newhart Show is an American situation comedy produced by MTM Enterprises, which aired 142 original episodes on CBS from September 16, , to April 1, . Comedian Bob Newhart portrayed a psychologist having to deal with his patients and fellow office workers...

. He was a regular on the series: Broadside
Broadside (TV series)
Broadside is an American sitcom that aired on ABC during the 1964-1965 TV season. The series, produced by McHale's Navy creator Edward Montagne, starred Kathleen Nolan, formerly of The Real McCoys .-Synopsis:The series centered around the women of the Navy circa World War II,...

(1964–1965) as Commander Rogers Adrian. He played the character of Charley in the 1966 dramatization of Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman
Death of a Salesman is a 1949 play written by American playwright Arthur Miller. It was the recipient of the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play. Premiered at the Morosco Theatre in February 1949, the original production ran for a total of 742 performances.-Plot :Willy Loman...

, and constantly acted throughout the 1970s as Elton Dykstra on The Intruders, Ernest W. Stanley on The Man Who Came to Dinner
The Man Who Came to Dinner
The Man Who Came to Dinner is a comedy in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It debuted on October 16, 1939 at the Music Box Theatre in New York City. It then enjoyed a number of New York and London revivals. The first London production was staged at The Savoy Theatre starring Robert...

, Mayor Chrisholm alongside Don Knotts
Don Knotts
Jesse Donald "Don" Knotts was an American comedic actor best known for his portrayal of Barney Fife on the 1960s television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show, a role which earned him five Emmy Awards...

 in the 1971 film How to Frame a Figg, and Mayor Massey on The Whiz Kid and the Mystery at Riverton. In 1968, he played a safecracker in a 4-part episode of I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...

. He played Conductor Harry Flood on the short-lived series Supertrain
Supertrain
Supertrain is an American television drama/adventure series that ran on NBC from February 7 to May 5, 1979. Nine episodes were made, including a 2-hour pilot episode.-Overview:...

. He played Jack Tripper
Jack Tripper
Jack Tripper is a fictional character on the sitcoms Three's Company and Three's a Crowd, based upon the character, Robin Tripp, of Man About the House and Robin's Nest. Jack was played by the late John Ritter.-Introduction:...

's grandfather in an episode of Three's Company
Three's Company
Three's Company is an American sitcom that aired from March 15, 1977, to September 18, 1984, on ABC. It is based on the British sitcom, Man About the House....

.

He and his wife Emily had two daughters and a son. He was an avid yachtsman and loved sailing. He died of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

 in Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...

, at the age of 70 and was cremated, his ashes scattered at sea.

External links

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