MARK STEVENS

Richard Stevens (1916-94) studied to be a painter but turned to theater work. He launched a radio career as an announcer in Akron and then moved to Hollywood, becoming a Warner Brothers contract actor in 1943. Along with his name he changed his looks, darkening and straightening his curly ginger-colored hair and covering his freckles. In the mid-'40s, Stevens emerged as a film noir leading man in such films as WITHIN THESE WALLS (1945) and THE DARK CORNER (1946), and two years later played what many critics consider his best role as an FBI man going undercover to arrest a gangster played by Richard Widmark in THE STREET WITH NO NAME (1948). Rounding out the ‘40s, he appeared in THE SNAKE PIT and in several musicals. In the 1950s, Stevens was also a TV star, producer and writer. He worked in semi-retirement in the 1960s in Europe, and then in the ‘80s appeared on TV in “Magnum, P.I.” and “Murder, She Wrote.” He died at 77.

1 comment:

LittleOldMe said...

Saw him in Murder She Wrote several times before I realized it was him, he looked so old....