Everett Sloane
Encyclopedia
Everett Sloane was an American
stage, film and television actor, songwriter
, and theatre director.
before dropping out in order to join a theater company, but he stopped acting and became a runner on Wall Street
after a number of negative stage reviews. After the stock market crash
in 1929, he decided to return to the theater.
's Mercury Theatre
, and acted in Welles's films in roles such as Citizen Kane
's Bernstein in 1941 and The Lady from Shanghai
s Arthur Bannister in 1948. He was memorable as a hired assassin in Renaissance Italy opposite Welles's Cesare Borgia
in Prince of Foxes
(1949).
Sloane's Broadway theater career began with the comedy Boy Meets Girl in 1945 and ended with From A to Z
, a revue
for which he wrote several songs, in 1960. In between, he acted in plays such as Native Son
(1941), A Bell for Adano (1944), and Room Service
(1953), and directed the melodrama
The Dancer (1946).
In the 1940s, Sloane was a frequent guest star on the radio theater series Inner Sanctum Mysteries
and was in The Mysterious Traveler
episode "Survival of the Fittest" with Kermit Murdock
. In 1953, he starred as Captain Frank Kennelly in the CBS radio crime drama 21st Precinct
. In 1957 he co-starred in the ninth episode of "Suspicion" co-starring Audie Murphy and Jack Warden. In 1958, he played Walter Brennan
's role in a remake of To Have and Have Not
called The Gun Runners
.
Sloane also worked extensively in television; in November 1955 he starred in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents
episode "Our Cook's A Treasure"; he appeared on the NBC
anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show
in the 1956 episode "Law Is for the Lovers", with co-star Inger Stevens
. Sloane was the voice of the title character of The Dick Tracy Show
in 130 cartoons produced in the early 1960s. Beginning in 1964, he provided character voices for the animated TV series The Adventures of Jonny Quest. He wrote the unused lyrics to "The Fishin' Hole", the theme song for The Andy Griffith Show
. Sloane guest starred on the show in 1962, playing Jubal Foster in the episode The Keeper of the Flame. He starred as the ruthless businessman in both the film and television versions of Rod Serling
's Patterns, and in the first season of The Twilight Zone
guest starred in "The Fever" as the victim of a Las Vegas slot machine.
Sloane also appeared in the Disney Zorro series in 1957–58 as Andres Felipe Basilio, in the "Man from Spain" episodes.
Admirers of F. Scott Fitzgerald
will long remember his magnificent renditions of passages from The Great Gatsby
on the NBC
program devoted to Fitzgerald in August 1955, part of the "Biography in Sound" series on great American authors.
at the age of 55, reportedly depressed
over oncoming blindness
by glaucoma
. He is buried at Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles.
(1941) Journey into Fear (1943) The Lady from Shanghai
(1947) Prince of Foxes
(1949) The Men (1950) The Enforcer (1951) Sirocco
(1951) The Big Knife
(1955) Lust for Life (1956) Patterns (1956) Somebody Up There Likes Me
(1956) The Gun Runners
(1958) Home from the Hill
(1960) Brushfire! (1962)The Disorderly Orderly
(1964)
The Patsy (1964)
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
stage, film and television actor, songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
, and theatre director.
Early life
Born to a Jewish family in Manhattan, New York, Sloane attended the University of PennsylvaniaUniversity of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
before dropping out in order to join a theater company, but he stopped acting and became a runner on Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
after a number of negative stage reviews. After the stock market crash
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
in 1929, he decided to return to the theater.
Career
Sloane eventually joined Orson WellesOrson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
's Mercury Theatre
Mercury Theatre
The Mercury Theatre was a theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and John Houseman. After a string of live theatrical productions, in 1938 the Mercury Theatre progressed into their best-known period as The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a radio series that included one of the...
, and acted in Welles's films in roles such as Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
's Bernstein in 1941 and The Lady from Shanghai
The Lady from Shanghai
The Lady from Shanghai is a 1947 film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, his estranged wife Rita Hayworth and Everett Sloane. It is based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King.-Plot:...
s Arthur Bannister in 1948. He was memorable as a hired assassin in Renaissance Italy opposite Welles's Cesare Borgia
Cesare Borgia
Cesare Borgia , Duke of Valentinois, was an Italian condottiero, nobleman, politician, and cardinal. He was the son of Pope Alexander VI and his long-term mistress Vannozza dei Cattanei. He was the brother of Lucrezia Borgia; Giovanni Borgia , Duke of Gandia; and Gioffre Borgia , Prince of Squillace...
in Prince of Foxes
Prince of Foxes (film)
Prince of Foxes is a 1949 film based on the Samuel Shellabarger novel Prince of Foxes. The movie starred Tyrone Power as Orsini and Orson Welles as Cesare Borgia.-Plot:...
(1949).
Sloane's Broadway theater career began with the comedy Boy Meets Girl in 1945 and ended with From A to Z
From A to Z
From A to Z is a musical revue with a book by Woody Allen, Herbert Farjeon, and Nina Warner Hook and songs by Jerry Herman, Fred Ebb, Mary Rodgers, Everett Sloane, Jay Thompson, Dickson Hughes, Jack Holmes, Paul Klein, Norman Martin, William Dyer, and Charles Zwar.Although a critical and commercial...
, a revue
Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
for which he wrote several songs, in 1960. In between, he acted in plays such as Native Son
Native Son
Native Son is a novel by American author Richard Wright. The novel tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, an African American living in utter poverty. Bigger lived in Chicago's South Side ghetto in the 1930s...
(1941), A Bell for Adano (1944), and Room Service
Room Service (play)
Room Service is a play written by Allen Boretz and John Murray. It was originally produced by George Abbott and debuted at the Cort Theatre in New York on May 19, 1937. Its initial production ran for 500 performances, closing on July 16, 1938. The play was revived for a short run of 16...
(1953), and directed the melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
The Dancer (1946).
In the 1940s, Sloane was a frequent guest star on the radio theater series Inner Sanctum Mysteries
Inner Sanctum Mysteries
Inner Sanctum Mysteries, a popular old-time radio program that aired from January 7, 1941 to October 5, 1952, was created by producer Himan Brown. A total of 526 episodes were broadcast.-Horror hosts:...
and was in The Mysterious Traveler
The Mysterious Traveler
The Mysterious Traveler was an anthology radio series, a magazine and a comic book. All three featured stories which ran the gamut from fantasy and science fiction to straight crime dramas of mystery and suspense.-Radio:...
episode "Survival of the Fittest" with Kermit Murdock
Kermit Murdock
Kermit Murdock was a film, television and radio actor known for his avuncular and professorial character portrayals....
. In 1953, he starred as Captain Frank Kennelly in the CBS radio crime drama 21st Precinct
21st Precinct
21st Precinct was a police drama broadcast on CBS radio from July 7, 1953 to July 26, 1956.Stanley Niss was the writer-director...
. In 1957 he co-starred in the ninth episode of "Suspicion" co-starring Audie Murphy and Jack Warden. In 1958, he played Walter Brennan
Walter Brennan
Walter Brennan was an American actor. Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on three separate occasions, which is currently the record for most wins.-Early life:...
's role in a remake of To Have and Have Not
To Have and Have Not (film)
To Have and Have Not is a 1944 romance-war-adventure film. The movie was directed by Howard Hawks and stars Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, and Lauren Bacall in her first film...
called The Gun Runners
The Gun Runners
The Gun Runners, a 1958 film directed by Don Siegel, is the third adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's novel To Have and Have Not, starring Audie Murphy and Patricia Owens. Everett Sloane essays the part of the alcoholic sidekick originally played by Walter Brennan in the film's first adaptation,...
.
Sloane also worked extensively in television; in November 1955 he starred in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
episode "Our Cook's A Treasure"; he appeared on the 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...
anthology series The Joseph Cotten Show
The Joseph Cotten Show
The Joseph Cotten Show is an American anthology series series hosted by and occasionally starring Joseph Cotten. The series, which first aired on NBC, aired 31 episodes from September 14, 1956, to September 13, 1957...
in the 1956 episode "Law Is for the Lovers", with co-star Inger Stevens
Inger Stevens
Inger Stevens was a Swedish-American movie and TV actress.- Early life :Inger Stevens was born Inger Stensland in Stockholm, Sweden. She was an insecure child and was often ill. When she was nine, her parents divorced and she moved with her father to New York City...
. Sloane was the voice of the title character of The Dick Tracy Show
The Dick Tracy Show
The Dick Tracy Show is an American animated television series based on Chester Gould's comic strip crime fighter. The series was produced from 1961 to 1962 by UPA.-Summary:...
in 130 cartoons produced in the early 1960s. Beginning in 1964, he provided character voices for the animated TV series The Adventures of Jonny Quest. He wrote the unused lyrics to "The Fishin' Hole", the theme song for The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show
The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised by CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina...
. Sloane guest starred on the show in 1962, playing Jubal Foster in the episode The Keeper of the Flame. He starred as the ruthless businessman in both the film and television versions of Rod Serling
Rod Serling
Rodman Edward "Rod" Serling was an American screenwriter, novelist, television producer, and narrator best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his science fiction anthology TV series, The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen and helped form...
's Patterns, and in the first season of 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...
guest starred in "The Fever" as the victim of a Las Vegas slot machine.
Sloane also appeared in the Disney Zorro series in 1957–58 as Andres Felipe Basilio, in the "Man from Spain" episodes.
Admirers of F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
will long remember his magnificent renditions of passages from The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
on the 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...
program devoted to Fitzgerald in August 1955, part of the "Biography in Sound" series on great American authors.
Death
Sloane committed suicideSuicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
at the age of 55, reportedly depressed
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
over oncoming blindness
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
by glaucoma
Glaucoma
Glaucoma is an eye disorder in which the optic nerve suffers damage, permanently damaging vision in the affected eye and progressing to complete blindness if untreated. It is often, but not always, associated with increased pressure of the fluid in the eye...
. He is buried at Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Partial filmography
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
(1941) Journey into Fear (1943) The Lady from Shanghai
The Lady from Shanghai
The Lady from Shanghai is a 1947 film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, his estranged wife Rita Hayworth and Everett Sloane. It is based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King.-Plot:...
(1947) Prince of Foxes
Prince of Foxes (film)
Prince of Foxes is a 1949 film based on the Samuel Shellabarger novel Prince of Foxes. The movie starred Tyrone Power as Orsini and Orson Welles as Cesare Borgia.-Plot:...
(1949) The Men (1950) The Enforcer (1951) Sirocco
Sirocco (film)
Sirocco is an American film noir directed by Curtis Bernhardt and written by A.I. Bezzerides and Hans Jacoby. It is based on the novel Coup de Grace written by Joseph Kessel. The drama features Humphrey Bogart, Märta Torén, Lee J. Cobb, among others.-Plot:In 1925 Damascus, the natives are engaged...
(1951) The Big Knife
The Big Knife
The Big Knife is a film noir directed and produced by Robert Aldrich from a screenplay by James Poe based on the play by Clifford Odets. The film stars Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen, Rod Steiger, Shelley Winters, Ilka Chase, and Everett Sloane.-Plot:Charlie Castle, a very...
(1955) Lust for Life (1956) Patterns (1956) Somebody Up There Likes Me
Somebody Up There Likes Me (film)
Somebody Up There Likes Me is a 1956 American drama film based on the life of middleweight boxing legend Rocky Graziano. Joseph Ruttenberg was awarded a 1956 Oscar in the category of Best Cinematography . The film also won the Oscar for Best Art Direction Somebody Up There Likes Me is a 1956...
(1956) The Gun Runners
The Gun Runners
The Gun Runners, a 1958 film directed by Don Siegel, is the third adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's novel To Have and Have Not, starring Audie Murphy and Patricia Owens. Everett Sloane essays the part of the alcoholic sidekick originally played by Walter Brennan in the film's first adaptation,...
(1958) Home from the Hill
Home from the Hill (film)
Home from the Hill is a 1960 film directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Robert Mitchum, Eleanor Parker, George Peppard, George Hamilton, Everett Sloane, and Luana Patten....
(1960) Brushfire! (1962)
The Disorderly Orderly
The Disorderly Orderly is a 1964 American comedy film released by Paramount Pictures, and starring Jerry Lewis. The film was produced by Paul Jones with a screenplay by director Frank Tashlin, based on a story by Norm Liebermann and Ed Haas.-Plot:...
(1964)