Lloyd Bridges

Infobox actor


imagesize =
caption = Bridges at the 44th Emmy Awards (1992)
birthname = Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Jr.
birthdate = birth date|1913|1|15|mf=y
birthplace = San Leandro, California
deathdate = death date and age|1998|3|10|1913|1|15|mf=y
deathplace = Los Angeles, California
spouse = Dorothy Simpson (1938-1998)
awards = Hollywood Walk of Fame
At 7065 Hollywood Boulevard

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 episodes "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

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". [ [http://web.archive.org/web/20040615173642/http://www.worldpeacenews.org/AUTH/ARCHIVE/077..htm World Peace News] ] 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)
*"The Trouble with Women" (1947)
*"Thunderbolt" (1947)
*"Unconquered" (1947)
*"Secret Service Investigator" (1948)
*"16 Fathoms Deep" (1948)
*"Moonrise" (1948)
*"Hideout" (1949)
*"Red Canyon" (1949)
*"Home of the Brave" (1949)
*"Calamity Jane and Sam Bass" (1949)
*"Trapped" (1949)
*"Colt .45" (1950)
*"Rocketship X-M" (1950)
*"The White Tower" (1950)
*"The Sound of Fury" (1950)
*"Little Big Horn" (1951)
*"Three Steps North" (1951)
*"High Noon" (1952)
*"Plymouth Adventure" (1952)
*"Last of the Comanches" (1953)
*"The Tall Texan" (1953)
*"The Kid from Left Field" (1953)
*"City of Bad Men" (1953)
*"The Limping Man" (1953)
*"Pride of the Blue Grass" (1954)
*"The Deadly Game" (1954)
*"Wichita" (1955)
*"Apache Woman" (1955)
*"Wetbacks" (1956)
*"The Rainmaker" (1956)
*"Ride Out for Revenge" (1957)
*"The Goddess" (1958)
*"A Pair of Boots" (1962)
*"Around the World Under the Sea" (1966)
*"Daring Game" (1968)
*"Attack on the Iron Coast" (1968)
*"The Happy Ending" (1969)
*"Scuba" (1972) (documentary) (narrator)
*"To Find a Man" (1972)
*"Running Wild" (1973)
*"The Fifth Musketeer" (1979)
*"Bear Island" (1979)
*"Airplane!" (1980)
*"" (1982)
*"The Thanksgiving Promise" (1986)
*"Weekend Warriors" (1987)
*"The Wild Pair" (1987)
*"" (1988)
*"Winter People" (1989)
*"Cousins" (1989)
*"Joe Versus the Volcano" (1990)
*"Hot Shots!" (1991)
*"Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" (1992)
*"Earth and the American Dream" (1992) (documentary) (narrator)
*"Mr. Bluesman" (1993)
*"Hot Shots! Part Deux" (1993)
*"Blown Away" (1994)
*"Jane Austen's Mafia!" (1998)
*"Meeting Daddy" (2000)
*"From Russia to Hollywood: The 100-Year Odyssey of Chekhov and Shdanoff" (2002)

hort 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

*"Sea Hunt" (1957-1961)
*"The Lloyd Bridges Show" (1962-1963)
*"The Loner" (1965-1966)
*"" (1966) (Fakeout:Anastas Poltroni)
*"A Case of Libel" (1968)
*"Lost Flight" (1969)
*"Silent Night, Lonely Night" (1969)
*"The Silent Gun" (1969)
*"The Love War" (1970)
*"San Francisco International Airport" (1970-1971)
*"Do You Take This Stranger?" (1971)
*"A Tattered Web" (1971)
*"Deadly Dream" (1971)
*"Water World" (1972-1975) (narrator)
*"Haunts of the Very Rich" (1972)
*"Trouble Comes to Town" (1973)
*"Crime Club" (1973)
*"Death Race" (1973)
*"Benjamin Franklin" (1974) (miniseries)
*"The Whirlwind" (1974)
*Stowaway to the Moon (1975)
*"Cop on the Beat" (1975)
*"Joe Forrester" (1975-1976)
*"Force of Evil" (1977)
*"Roots" (1977) (miniseries)
*"Telethon" (1977)
*"Shimmering Light" (1978)
*Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series) (Commander Cain)
*"Alice in Wonderland" (1985 miniseries) (White Knight)
*"In The Nick Of Time" (1991 Christmas Movie) (Santa Claus)
*"The Outer Limits" – "The Sandkings" (March 26, 1995)
*"Dress Gray" (1986) (miniseries)
*Seinfeld (1997) (Izzy Mandelbaum)

References

* [http://www.worldpeacenews.org/AUTH/ARCHIVE/077..htm March-April 2004 – UNITED WORLD, "publication of the Coalition for a Democratic World Government, News and Views."]

External links

*imdb name|id=0000978|name=Lloyd Bridges
*amg name|2:3198
* [http://home.comcast.net/~bill.jones.scubaguy/SEA_HUNT/SeaHunt.html Sea Hunt Trivia Guide, Lloyd Bridges] from [http://home.comcast.net/~bill.jones.scubaguy/ The Scuba Guy]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8454 Lloyd Bridges Memorial] at Find A Grave

Persondata
NAME=Bridges, Lloyd Vernet, Jr.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Bridges, Lloyd
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Actor
DATE OF BIRTH=January 15, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH=San Leandro, California, United States of America
DATE OF DEATH=March 10, 1998
PLACE OF DEATH=Los Angeles, California, United States of America