Harry Lapidus Stalmaster, known as Hal Stalmaster (born March 29, 1940 in Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

), is a former actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 best known for his lead role in the 1957 Walt Disney

Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 film of the American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

, Johnny Tremain

Johnny Tremain (film)

Johnny Tremain is a 1957 film made by Walt Disney Productions, based on the 1944 Newbery Medal-winning children's novel of the same name by Esther Forbes, retelling the story of the years in Boston, Massachusetts prior to the outbreak of the American Revolution. The movie was directed by Robert...

, based on the 1943 Esther Forbes

Esther Forbes

Esther Louise Forbes was an American novelist, historian andchildren's writer who received the Pulitzer Prize and the Newbery Medal.-Life:...

 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

  of the same name

Johnny Tremain

Johnny Tremain is a 1944 children's novel by Esther Forbes set in Boston prior to and during the outbreak of the American Revolution. The novel's themes include apprenticeship, courtship, sacrifice, human rights, and the growing tension between Whigs and Tories as conflict nears...

.

Johnny Tremain

In the dramatization, Stalmaster is an apprentice silversmith

Silversmith

A silversmith is a craftsperson who makes objects from silver or gold. The terms 'silversmith' and 'goldsmith' are not synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product varies greatly as does the scale of objects created.Silversmithing is the...

 who burns his hand and requires surgery for proper healing from the noted physician Joseph Warren

Joseph Warren

Dr. Joseph Warren was an American doctor who played a leading role in American Patriot organizations in Boston in early days of the American Revolution, eventually serving as president of the revolutionary Massachusetts Provincial Congress...

, played by Walter Coy

Walter Coy

Walter Darwin Coy was an American stage, radio, film, and, principally, television actor, originally from Great Falls, Montana. He was best known for narrating the NBC western anthology series, Frontier, which aired early Sunday evenings in the 1955-1956 season.-Career:Coy performed on Broadway...

. Spurred to fight the British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 for colonial independence, young Tremain joins the Sons of Liberty

Sons of Liberty

The Sons of Liberty were a political group made up of American patriots that originated in the pre-independence North American British colonies. The group was formed to protect the rights of the colonists from the usurpations by the British government after 1766...

 and participates in the Boston Tea Party

Boston Tea Party

The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies...

 and Paul Revere

Paul Revere

Paul Revere was an American silversmith and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Paul Revere's Ride...

's ride. Walt Disney dedicated Johnny Tremain "to the youth of the world . . . in whose spirit and courage rests the hope of eventual freedom for all mankind." Disney continued, "Johnny Tremain is about the nameless, unsung patriot

Patriot

A patriot is someone who feels a strong support for his or her country. See Patriotism.Patriot or Patriots may also refer to:- Politics :* Patriot Party , various political parties...

s whose hunger for freedom made possible the independence that is enjoyed in America today."

Stalmaster is the younger brother of former actor and casting director Lynn A. Stalmaster

Lynn Stalmaster

Lynn Stalmaster, born 1927 in Omaha, Nebraska), is an award winning American casting director.-Career:After serving in the U.S. Army Stalmaster got his first job in show business as an actor, appearing in the war movies The Steel Helmet and The Flying Leathernecks...

, a native of Omaha

Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...

, Nebraska

Nebraska

Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....

. Stalmaster said that his brother "didn't help me one bit [in landing the role of Johnny Tremain]. He thought I was too young to start acting and besides, he didn't think I could act!"

Stalmaster was seventeen when Johnny Tremain was filmed. The picture also ran as "The Liberty Story" on two segments of Walt Disney Presents, which then aired on 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...

.

Other roles

In 1957, Stalmaster also played Olympic

Olympic Games

The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

 athlete Bob Richards

Bob Richards

The Reverend Robert Eugene Richards, known as Bob Richards , known as the "Vaulting Vicar" or the "Pole Vaulting Parson" in his competitive days, was a versatile athlete who made three Olympic teams in two events...

 as a child in the episode "Leap to Heaven" of the ABC series Cavalcade of America

Cavalcade of America

Cavalcade of America is an anthology drama series that was sponsored by the DuPont Company, although it occasionally presented a musical, such as an adaptation of Show Boat, and condensed biographies of popular composers. It was initially broadcast on radio from 1935 to 1953, and later on...

. In 1959, he played the role of "Skinny" in the episode "Misfits" of Nick Adams's unconventional 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...

 series on ABC, The Rebel

The Rebel (TV series)

The Rebel is an American Western television series that ran originally on the ABC network from 1959 to 1961. The program was produced by Goodson-Todman Productions, marking one of their few non-game show ventures...

.

In 1960, Stalmaster portrayed Gwynn in three of the eight hour-long segments of the Walt Disney Presents miniseries

Miniseries

A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...

, The Swamp Fox

The Swamp Fox (TV series)

The Swamp Fox is a television series produced by Walt Disney and starring Leslie Nielsen as American Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion.The theme song * was sung by Nielsen as well. One of the Swamp Fox's adversaries was Colonel Banastre Tarleton, played by John Sutton...

, with Leslie Nielsen

Leslie Nielsen

Leslie William Nielsen, OC was a Canadian and naturalized American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in more than one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying more than 220 characters...

 in the title role of General Francis Marion

Francis Marion

Francis Marion was a military officer who served in the American Revolutionary War. Acting with Continental Army and South Carolina militia commissions, he was a persistent adversary of the British in their occupation of South Carolina in 1780 and 1781, even after the Continental Army was driven...

 of the southern theater of the American Revolution. After The Swamp Fox ended, Stalmaster did not act again until 1966, when he made his final performances on two network programs: as Borden in the episode "Robbie and the Little Stranger" of Fred MacMurray

Fred MacMurray

Frederick Martin "Fred" MacMurray was an American actor who appeared in more than 100 movies and a successful television series during a career that spanned nearly a half-century, from 1930 to the 1970s....

's CBS

CBS

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...

 sitcom My Three Sons

My Three Sons

My Three Sons is an American situation comedy. The series ran from 1960 to 1965 on ABC, and moved to CBS until its end on August 24, 1972. My Three Sons chronicles the life of a widower and aeronautical engineer named Steven Douglas , raising his three sons.The series was a cornerstone of the CBS...

and as Lieutenant Gurney in the episode "Back to the Drawing Board" on Paul Burke

Paul Burke (actor)

Paul Burke was an American actor best known for his lead roles in two 1960s ABC television series, Naked City and Twelve O'Clock High...

's ABC adventure series about World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Twelve O'Clock High

Twelve O'Clock High (TV series)

Twelve O'Clock High or 12 O'Clock High is an American drama series set in World War II. This TV series originally broadcasted on ABC-TV for two-and-one-half TV seasons from September 18, 1964, through January 13, 1967; was based on the motion picture Twelve O'Clock High...

.

Stalmaster and his wife, Nancy E. Stalmaster, reside in Studio City, California. They have a daughter, Caryl Schrier Stalmaster of Sherman Oaks, California.