Ian Wolfe
Encyclopedia
Ian Wolfe was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actor whose films date from 1934 to 1990. Until 1934, he worked as a theatre actor. Wolfe mostly found work as a 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...

, appearing in over 270 films. He and his wife, Elizabeth, had two daughters.

Wolfe was also a veteran of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 where he served as a medical sergeant in the National Army of the United States. His service number was 2371377.

Although American by birth and upbringing, Wolfe was often cast as an Englishman: his stage experience endowed him with precise diction resembling an upper-class British accent. A receding hairline and etched features at a relatively early age allowed him to play older men before he actually grew old. Wolfe found a niche as a soft-spoken learned man, and his over 250 roles included many attorneys, judges, butlers, ministers, professors, and doctors.

Wolfe's best-known role may have been in the 1946 movie Bedlam
Bedlam (film)
Bedlam is a film starring Boris Karloff and Anna Lee, and was the last in a series of stylish B films produced by Val Lewton for RKO Radio Pictures. The film was inspired by William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress, and Hogarth was given a writing credit.-Plot:Set in 1761 London, England, the film...

, in which he played a scientist confined to an asylum.

Wolfe wrote and self-published two books of poetry Forty-Four Scribbles and a Prayer: Lyrics and Ballads and Sixty Ballads and Lyrics In Search of Music.

Of note to science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 fans, Ian Wolfe appeared in two episodes of the original Star Trek
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...

television series: "Bread and Circuses" (1968) as Septimus, and "All Our Yesterdays" (1969) as Mr. Atoz, and portrayed the wizard Traquil in the cult series Wizards and Warriors
Wizards and Warriors
Wizards & Warriors is a platforming video game developed by UK-based company Rare for the Nintendo Entertainment System . It was published by Acclaim and released in North America in December 1987 and in Europe on January 7, 1990. It was also released in Japan by Jaleco on July 15,...

(1983). In 1982, Wolfe had a small recurring role on the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati
WKRP in Cincinnati
WKRP in Cincinnati is an American situation comedy that featured the misadventures of the staff of a struggling fictional radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. The show was created by Hugh Wilson and was based upon his experiences working in advertising sales at Top 40 radio station WQXI in Atlanta...

as Hirsch, the sarcastic, irreverent butler to WKRP owner Lillian Carlson.

Wolfe, who worked until the last couple of years of his life, died January 23, 1992, at age 95, of natural causes. He was cremated.

Partial filmography

  • The Barretts of Wimpole Street
    The Barretts of Wimpole Street
    The Barretts of Wimpole Street is a 1934 American film depicting the real-life romance between poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning , despite the opposition of her father Edward Moulton-Barrett . The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture...

    (1934)
  • The Raven
    The Raven (1935 film)
    The Raven is a horror film starring Boris Karloff and Béla Lugosi, and directed by Lew Landers. It revolves around Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem, featuring Lugosi as a Poe-obsessed mad surgeon with a torture chamber in his basement and Karloff as a fugitive murderer desperately on the run from the...

    (1935)
  • Mutiny on the Bounty
    Mutiny on the Bounty (1935 film)
    Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1935 film starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable, and directed by Frank Lloyd based on the Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall novel Mutiny on the Bounty.The film was one of the biggest hits of its time...

    (1935)
  • The Bold Caballero
    The Bold Caballero (1936 film)
    The Bold Caballero is a 1936 film based on the famous character Zorro, created by Johnston McCulley. The characters Don Alejandro Vega and Bernardo are notably absent. Native American stars include Chief Thundercloud as Don Diego Vega/Zorro's aide and Charles Stevens as Captain Vargas. John...

    (1936)
  • The Prince and the Pauper
    The Prince and the Pauper (1937 film)
    The Prince and the Pauper is a 1937 film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Mark Twain. It starred Errol Flynn, twins Billy and Bobby Mauch in the title roles, and Claude Rains....

    (1937)
  • The League of Frightened Men
    The League of Frightened Men (1937 film)
    The League of Frightened Men is a 1937 mystery film based on the second Nero Wolfe novel by Rex Stout. Directed by Alfred E. Green, the Columbia Pictures film stars Walter Connolly as Nero Wolfe, a role played by Edward Arnold in the previous year's Meet Nero Wolfe...

    (1937)
  • The Emperor's Candlesticks
    The Emperor's Candlesticks (film)
    The Emperor's Candlesticks is a 1937 film starring William Powell and Luise Rainer, based on the novel of the same name by Baroness Orczy. It was directed by George Fitzmaurice.-Plot:...

    (1937)
  • Blondie
    Blondie (film)
    Blondie is a 1938 movie directed by Frank Strayer, based on the comic strip of the same name. The screenplay was written by Chic Young and Richard Flournoy....

    (1938)
  • On Borrowed Time
    On Borrowed Time
    On Borrowed Time is a 1939 film about the role death plays in life, and how humanity cannot live without it. It is adapted from Paul Osborn's 1938 Broadway hit play. The play, based on a novel by Lawrence Edward Watkin, has been revived twice on Broadway since its original run.Set in small-town...

    (1939)
  • The Great Commandment
    The Great Commandment
    The Great Commandment is a Christian film directed by Irving Pichel, which portrays the conversion to Christianity of a young Zealot, Joel, and the Roman soldier Longinus through the teachings of Jesus in his Parable of the Good Samaritan. It was co-produced by Rev. James K. Friedrich and released...

    (1939)
  • Allegheny Uprising
    Allegheny Uprising
    Allegheny Uprising is a 1939 film produced by RKO Pictures, starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne as pioneers of early American expansion in south central Pennsylvania. Clad in buckskin and a coonskin cap , Wayne plays real-life James Smith, an American coping with British rule in colonial America...

    (1939)
  • Fast and Loose
    Fast and Loose (1939 film)
    Fast and Loose is a 1939 American thriller film directed by Edwin L. Marin and starring Robert Montgomery, Rosalind Russell and Reginald Owen. It was a sequel to the 1938 film Fast Company...

    (1939)
  • Foreign Correspondent
    Foreign Correspondent (film)
    Foreign Correspondent is a 1940 American spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock which tells the story of an American reporter who tries to expose enemy spies in Britain, a series of events involving a continent-wide conspiracy that eventually leads to the events of a fictionalized World War...

    (1940)
  • The Son of Monte Cristo
    The Son of Monte Cristo
    The Son of Monte Cristo is a 1940 black-and-white film directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett, and George Sanders....

    (1940)
  • The Earl of Chicago
    The Earl of Chicago
    The Earl of Chicago is a 1940 American drama film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Robert Montgomery, Edward Arnold, Reginald Owen and Edmund Gwenn...

    (1940)
  • Hudson's Bay
    Hudson's Bay (film)
    Hudson's Bay is a 1941 Historical drama by 20th Century Fox starring Paul Muni, Gene Tierney and Laird Cregar. The film is about a pair of French-Canadian explorers whose findings lead to the formation of the Hudson's Bay Company...

    (1941)
  • Secret Agent of Japan
    Secret Agent of Japan
    Secret Agent of Japan is the first American anti-Japanese war film produced by a major studio after the attack on Pearl Harbor. It stars Preston Foster as a nightclub owner in Shanghai who becomes involved in espionage revolving around preparations for the infamous sneak attack.-Cast:*Preston...

    (1942)
  • Saboteur
    Saboteur (film)
    Saboteur is a 1942 Universal film directed by Alfred Hitchcock with a screenplay written by Peter Viertel, Joan Harrison, and Dorothy Parker. The movie stars Priscilla Lane, Robert Cummings, and Norman Lloyd...

    (1942)
  • The Scarlet Claw
    The Scarlet Claw
    The Scarlet Claw is a 1944 Sherlock Holmes movie directed by Roy William Neill, starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. It is the eighth film of the Rathbone/Bruce series. The device of a killer using a supernatural entity to cover up his crimes is borrowed from The Hound of the Baskervilles,...

    (1944)
  • The Invisible Man's Revenge
    The Invisible Man's Revenge
    The Invisible Man's Revenge is a 1944 horror film directed by Ford Beebe and written by Bertram Millhauser. It stars John Carradine as a mad scientist who tests his experiment on Jon Hall....

    (1944)
  • The Pearl of Death
    The Pearl of Death
    The Pearl of Death is a 1944 Sherlock Holmes film starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. The story is loosely based on Conan Doyle's short story "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons" but features some additions, such as Evelyn Ankers as an accomplice of the villain, played...

    (1944)
  • Mystery of the River Boat
    Mystery of the River Boat
    Mystery of the River Boat is a Universal movie serial.-Cast:* Robert Lowery as Steve Langtry* Eddie Quillan as Jug Jenks* Marion Martin as Celeste Eltree, river boat singer* Marjorie Clements as Jenny Perrin, Captain Perrin's daughter...

    (1944 serial)
  • Confidential Agent
    Confidential Agent
    Confidential Agent is a 1945 spy film made by Warner Bros. It was directed by Herman Shumlin and produced by Robert Buckner with Jack L. Warner as executive producer. The screenplay was by Robert Buckner, based on the novel The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene...

    (1945)
  • Tomorrow Is Forever
    Tomorrow Is Forever
    Tomorrow Is Forever is a 1946 black-and-white film distributed by RKO Radio Pictures, directed by Irving Pichel, starring Claudette Colbert, Orson Welles and George Brent. The music score is by Max Steiner...

    (1946)
  • Bedlam
    Bedlam (film)
    Bedlam is a film starring Boris Karloff and Anna Lee, and was the last in a series of stylish B films produced by Val Lewton for RKO Radio Pictures. The film was inspired by William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress, and Hogarth was given a writing credit.-Plot:Set in 1761 London, England, the film...

    (1946)
  • Dressed to Kill
    Dressed to Kill (1946 film)
    Dressed to Kill , is the last of fourteen films starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson....

    (1946)
  • Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
    Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
    Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is a 1948 American comedy film directed by H.C. Potter and starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. The film was written and produced by the team of Melvin Frank and Norman Panama...

    (1948)
  • They Live by Night
    They Live by Night
    They Live by Night is a film noir, based on Edward Anderson's Depression era novel Thieves Like Us. The film was directed by Nicholas Ray and starred Farley Granger as "Bowie" Bowers and Cathy O'Donnell as "Keechie" Mobley...

    (1948)
  • Julia Misbehaves
    Julia Misbehaves
    Julia Misbehaves is a 1948 romantic comedy film. It stars Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon as a married couple who are soon separated by his snobbish family. They meet again many years later, when the daughter he has raised, played by Elizabeth Taylor, invites her mother to her wedding...

    (1948)
  • Colorado Territory
    Colorado Territory (film)
    Colorado Territory is a 1949 western film, a remake of the 1941 High Sierra. Both films were directed by Raoul Walsh. It was the first film premiered at a drive-in theater...

    (1949)
  • The Magnificent Yankee (1950)
  • The Great Caruso
    The Great Caruso
    The Great Caruso is a 1951 biographical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by Richard Thorpe and produced by Joe Pasternak with Jesse L. Lasky as associate producer from a screenplay by Sonya Levien and William Ludwig. The original music was by Johnny Green and the cinematography by...

    (1951)
  • Mask of the Avenger (1951)
  • Here Comes the Groom
    Here Comes the Groom
    Here Comes the Groom is a 1951 musical romantic comedy film starring Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman. Directed and produced by Frank Capra, the film was released by Paramount Pictures.-Plot:...

    (1951)
  • On Dangerous Ground
    On Dangerous Ground
    On Dangerous Ground is a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray and produced by John Houseman. The screenplay was written by A. I. Bezzerides based on the novel Mad with Much Heart, by Gerald Butler...

    (1952)
  • Captain Pirate
    Captain Pirate
    Captain Pirate is a 1952 American action/adventure film directed by Ralph Murphy, starring Louis Hayward and Patricia Medina, and produced by Harry Joe Brown...

    (1952)
  • Julius Caesar
    Julius Caesar (1953 film)
    Julius Caesar is an 1953 MGM film adaptation of the play by Shakespeare, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who also wrote the uncredited screenplay, and produced by John Houseman. The original music score is by Miklós Rózsa...

    (1953)
  • Houdini
    Houdini (film)
    Houdini is a 1953 biographical film about the life of the magician and escapologist Harry Houdini. It was made by Paramount Pictures, directed by George Marshall and produced by George Pal from a screenplay by Philip Yordan, based on the book Houdini by Harold Kellock. The music score was by Roy...

    (1953)
  • The Actress
    The Actress
    The Actress is an 1953 American comedy-drama film based on Ruth Gordon's autobiographical play Years Ago. Gordon herself wrote the screenplay. The film was directed by George Cukor and stars Jean Simmons, Spencer Tracy, Teresa Wright, and Anthony Perkins in his film debut.The film was nominated for...

    (1953)
  • Scandal at Scourie
    Scandal at Scourie
    Scandal at Scourie is an American drama movie released in 1953 and starring Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon "above the title", and co-starring Donna Corcoran.- Plot :...

    (1953)
  • 99 River Street
    99 River Street
    99 River Street is a 1953 film noir, starring John Payne, Evelyn Keyes, Brad Dexter, Frank Faylen, and Peggie Castle.The film was directed by Phil Karlson, produced by Edward Small, with cinematography by Franz Planer.-Plot:...

    (1953)
  • About Mrs. Leslie
    About Mrs. Leslie
    About Mrs. Leslie is a drama film directed by Daniel Mann and starring Shirley Booth and Robert Ryan. It was nominated for a BAFTA Award in 1955.-Storyline:Mrs...

    (1954)
  • Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
  • Her Twelve Men
    Her Twelve Men
    Her Twelve Men is a 1954 comedy drama film made by MGM. It was directed by Robert Z. Leonard, and written by William Roberts and Laura Z. Hobson, based on story by Louise Baker.-Cast:*Greer Garson as Jan Stewart*Robert Ryan as Joe Hargrave...

    (1954)
  • The Silver Chalice
    The Silver Chalice (film)
    The Silver Chalice is a 1954 historical epic film from Warner Bros., based on Thomas B. Costain's 1952 novel of the same name.-Plot:A Greek artisan is commissioned to cast the cup of Christ in silver and sculpt around its rim the faces of the disciples and Jesus himself. He travels to Jerusalem and...

    (1954)
  • Moonfleet
    Moonfleet (1955 film)
    Moonfleet is a 1955 film directed by Fritz Lang which was inspired by the novel Moonfleet by J. Meade Falkner, although significant alterations were made in the characters and plot....

    (1955)
  • The King's Thief
    The King's Thief
    The King's Thief is a 1955 swashbuckling adventure film directed by Robert Z. Leonard. Released on August 5, 1955, the film takes place in London at the time of Charles II and stars Ann Blyth, Edmund Purdom, David Niven, and George Sanders.-Plot:...

    (1955)
  • The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955)
  • Diane
    Diane (film)
    Diane is a 1956 American historical film drama about the life of Diane de Poitiers, produced by MGM. It was directed by David Miller and produced by Edwin H. Knopf from a screenplay by Christopher Isherwood based on a story by John Erskine. The music score was composed by Miklós Rózsa, Robert H....

    (1956)
  • Gaby
    Gaby (film)
    Gaby is a 1956 drama film made by MGM. It is the third version of the play Waterloo Bridge, previously made into films in 1931 and 1940. It is the only version of the play made in color, and the least faithful to it. Not only the story but the names of the characters were also changed.This version...

    (1956)
  • Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
  • Pollyanna
    Pollyanna (1960 film)
    Pollyanna is a Walt Disney Productions feature film starring child actress Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Karl Malden and Richard Egan in a story about a cheerful orphan changing the outlook of a small town. Based upon the novel Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter, the film was written and directed by David...

    (1960)
  • The Lost World
    The Lost World (1960 film)
    The Lost World is a 1960 science fiction adventure film based on the novel of the same name by Arthur Conan Doyle and directed by Irwin Allen...

    (1960)
  • All in a Night's Work
    All in a Night's Work (film)
    All in a Night's Work is a 1961 romantic screwball comedy starring Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine, and directed by Joseph Anthony.-Plot:Tony Ryder's uncle, the wealthy owner of a newspaper, has just died...

    (1961)
  • The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm
    The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm
    The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm is a 1962 American film directed by Henry Levin and George Pal. The latter was the producer and also in charge of the stop motion animation. The film was one of the highest grossing films of 1962. It won one Oscar and was nominated for three additional...

    (1962)
  • Diary of a Madman
    Diary of a Madman (film)
    Diary of a Madman is a 1963 horror film directed by Reginald Le Borg and starring Vincent Price, Nancy Kovack, and Chris Warfield.The screenplay, written by producer Robert Kent, is an adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's short story "Le Horla" , written in 1887...

    (1963)
  • Games
    Games (film)
    Games is a 1967 psychological thriller, directed by Curtis Harrington and starring James Caan, Katharine Ross, and Simone Signoret.-Plot:...

    (1967)
  • THX 1138
    THX 1138
    THX 1138 is a 1971 science fiction film directed by George Lucas in his directorial debut. The film is based on a screenplay by Lucas and Walter Murch...

    (1971)
  • The Fortune
    The Fortune
    The Fortune is a 1975 American comedy film starring Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty, and directed by Mike Nichols. The screenplay by Adrien Joyce focuses on two bumbling con men who plot to steal the money of a wealthy young heiress.-Plot:...

    (1975)
  • Reds (1981)
  • Christmas and Halloween Episodes, Season 5 (1983)
  • Cheers (TV) (1983)
  • Dick Tracy (1990)
  • Grandpa's Ghost in Ghost Stories by Steven Speilberg


External links

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