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William Campbell (film actor)
Encyclopedia
- This is about the film and television actor. For similarly named performers, see William Campbell (disambiguation).
William Campbell (October 30, 1923 April 28, 2011) was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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...
who appeared in supporting
Supporting actor
A supporting actor is an actor who performs roles in a play or film other than that of the leads.These roles range from bit parts to secondary leads. They are sometimes but not necessarily character roles. A supporting actor must also use restraint not to upstage the main actor/actress in the...
roles in major film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
productions and also starred in several low-budget B-movie
B-movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
s, including two cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
films.
Career
Campbell's movie career began in 1950, with a small part in the John GarfieldJohn Garfield
John Garfield was an American actor adept at playing brooding, rebellious, working-class character roles. He grew up in poverty in Depression-era New York City and in the early 1930s became an important member of the Group Theater. In 1937 he moved to Hollywood, eventually becoming one of Warner...
film, The Breaking Point. After several years of similar supporting performances in a number of films, including as a co-pilot in William Wellman's The High and the Mighty
The High and the Mighty (film)
The High and the Mighty is a 1954 American "disaster" film directed by William A. Wellman and written by Ernest K. Gann who also wrote the novel on which his screenplay was based. The film's cast was headlined by John Wayne, who was also the project's co-producer...
(1954), he won his first starring role in Cell 2455 Death Row (1955), a low-budget prison film for Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
. He played a death row
Death row
Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution , even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists.After individuals are found...
inmate, based loosely on the true story of Caryl Chessman
Caryl Chessman
Caryl Whittier Chessman was a convicted robber and rapist who gained fame as a death row inmate in California. Chessman's case attracted worldwide attention, and as a result he became a cause célèbre for the movement to ban capital punishment.-Crime and conviction:Born in St...
, who staunchly proclaimed his innocence and obtained numerous reprieves over many years until finally being executed. Campbell's surprisingly powerful performance received generally good notices from critics, but it did very little for his career; his next several roles were again providing support to lead actors, including Love Me Tender
Love Me Tender (1956 film)
Love Me Tender is a 1956 American black-and-white CinemaScope motion picture directed by Robert D. Webb, and released by 20th Century Fox on November 21, 1956. The film, named after the song, stars Richard Egan, Debra Paget, and Elvis Presley in his film debut. It is in the Western genre with...
(1956) (in which he became the first person to sing onscreen with Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
) and the 1958 film version
The Naked and the Dead (film)
The Naked and the Dead is a 1958 widescreen film based on Norman Mailer's World War II novel The Naked and the Dead. Directed by Raoul Walsh and filmed in Panama the screenplay attributed to the Sanders Brothers adds a strip tease and larger action scenes to Mailer's original narrative...
of Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
's The Naked and the Dead
The Naked and the Dead
The Naked and the Dead is a 1948 novel by Norman Mailer. It was based on his experiences with the 112th Cavalry Regiment during the Philippines Campaign in World War II...
.
In 1958, Campbell co-starred in Cannonball, a short-lived television series about truck drivers. After that, he toiled for more years in small parts in increasingly lower grade movies.
In 1963, Campbell began a brief association with Roger Corman
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...
, starring in the director's The Young Racers that year. The auto-racing themed movie, written for the screen by Campbell's brother Robert Wright Campbell
Robert Wright Campbell
Robert Wright Campbell , often credited as R. Wright Campbell, was an American screenwriter, author and occasional actor...
, was shot in Ireland. After production was completed, the film's sound man, Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
, talked Corman into allowing Coppola to remain in Ireland with a small crew and direct a low-budget horror film, to be produced by Corman. Coppola promised it would be the cheapest film Corman was ever involved in. Shot for approximately $40,000, the resultant film, Dementia 13
Dementia 13
Dementia 13 is a 1963 horror thriller released by American International Pictures, starring William Campbell, Patrick Magee, and Luana Anders. The film was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Roger Corman...
(1963), became an atmospheric and violent horror thriller clearly made in imitation of Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
. Campbell starred as a moody loner who at one point becomes the chief suspect in a series of gruesome axe killings; Patrick Magee
Patrick Magee (actor)
Patrick Magee was a Northern Irish actor best known for his collaborations with Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, as well as his appearances in horror films and in Stanley Kubrick's films A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon.-Early life:He was born Patrick McGee in Armagh, County Armagh, Northern...
and Luana Anders
Luana Anders
Luana Anders was an American film and television actress.-Career:Anders, born Luana Margo Anderson, began her career appearing in several supporting roles in low budget B-movies for American International Pictures, quite a few of them directed by Roger Corman. She was part of a group of well known...
led the supporting cast. Many years later, Campbell would provide an informative and amusing audio commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
for the film's DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
release.
Campbell also starred in another, even cheaper and more bizarre, Corman-produced horror yarn. Filmed in 1963 in Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
under the title Operacija Ticijan, again with Magee in the cast, the movie was never released in its original form, although it was re-edited, re-dubbed and briefly shown on television as Portrait in Terror. Years later, additional footage was shot in California, first by Jack Hill
Jack Hill
Jack Hill is an U.S. film director, noted for his work in the exploitation film genre. Despite this, several of Hill's later films have been characterized as feminist works.Hill was born in Los Angeles...
, then by Stephanie Rothman
Stephanie Rothman
Stephanie Rothman is a film director, producer and screenwriter, known for her low-budget independent exploitation films made in the 1960s and 1970s. She was the first female to be awarded the Directors Guild of America fellowship...
, transforming what was once a spy thriller into the story of a vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
stalking the streets of Venice, California. Retitled Blood Bath
Blood Bath
Blood Bath is a 1966 horror film directed by Jack Hill and Stephanie Rothman. William Campbell stars as an artist with vampiric tendencies who kills beautiful women and dumps their bodies into a vat of boiling wax in his studio...
, although it also became known as Track of the Vampire, the film received a limited theatrical release in 1966. Campbell's character was an artist who killed women and hid their bodies in his sculptures; he also acted out a vampire who could freely walk during the daylight in search of victims. However, the fanged vampire was confusingly played by another actor who did not resemble Campbell. Like Dementia 13, the film has managed to develop a cult following despite its deficiencies. In the early 1990s, Video Watchdog
Video Watchdog
Video Watchdog is a bimonthly, digest size film magazine started in 1990 by publisher/editor Tim Lucas and his wife, art director and co-publisher Donna Lucas....
magazine devoted lengthy articles in three separate issues painstakingly detailing the convoluted production history of this strange but fascinating movie.
Campbell has also obtained cult status for his guest starring roles on Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
, appearing first as the mischievous super-being Trelane, in an episode of the original series called "The Squire of Gothos". Campbell also appeared twice as the Klingon
Klingon
Klingons are a fictional warrior race in the Star Trek universe.Klingons are recurring villains in the 1960s television show Star Trek: The Original Series, and have appeared in all five spin-off series and eight feature films...
Captain Koloth. Campbell first played Koloth on the original Star Trek series in the classic episode "The Trouble With Tribbles." He reprised the role on the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe...
episode entitled "Blood Oath", some thirty years later. Campbell appeared at several Trek conventions in the 1980s and 1990s and many Star Trek fans consider Campbell's portrayal of the Trelane character as the first introduction of the "Q culture
Q (Star Trek)
Q is a fictional character who appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, as well as in related products. In all of these programs, he is played by John de Lancie....
" to the series. His last appearance was at the convention organized by Creation Entertainment
Creation Entertainment
Creation Entertainment is an entertainment company located in Glendale, California which produces fan conventions for fans of comic books, and various films and television series, mainly in the sci-fi, horror and fantasy genres. It was founded in 1971 by Gary Berman and Adam Malin in New York....
at the Las Vegas Hilton
Las Vegas Hilton
The Las Vegas Hilton is a hotel, casino, and convention center in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is a joint venture between Colony Capital, which owns 60 percent, and New York City-based REIT Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds, which owns the remaining 40 percent...
in August 2006.
Campbell was married three times. His first marriage was to Judith Exner
Judith Exner
Judith Exner was an American woman who claimed to be the mistress of U.S. president John F. Kennedy and Mafia leaders Sam Giancana and John Roselli. She was also known as Judith Campbell Exner.-Early life:...
in 1952. They divorced in 1958. Ms. Exner, at some point, became involved with U.S. President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
. His second wife was Barbara Bricker. They were married from 1960-1961. He married his third wife, Tereza, in 1962 (although some accounts have them marrying in 1963). They were married until his death. He died quietly on April 28, 2011, at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
The Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital is a retirement community, with individual cottages, and a fully licensed, acute-care hospital, located at 23388 Mulholland Drive in Woodland Hills, California...
in Woodland Hills, California.
Partial filmography
- The Breaking Point (1950)
- Operation PacificOperation PacificOperation Pacific is a 1951 World War II submarine film starring John Wayne and directed by George Waggner. The technical advisor for this film was Admiral Charles A...
(1951) (credited as Bill Campbell) - The People Against O'HaraThe People Against O'HaraThe People Against O'Hara is a 1951 film noir based on Eleazar Lipsky's novel. The movie stars Spencer Tracy, Pat O'Brien, and James Arness, and is directed by John Sturges, who also directed the The Great Escape.- Plot :...
(1951) - Battle Circus (1953)
- Small Town GirlSmall Town Girl (1953 film)Small Town Girl is a 1953 musical film directed by László Kardos and starring Jane Powell, Farley Granger, and Ann Miller. Busby Berkeley choreographed several dance numbers. Bobby Van performed the memorable "Street Dance", in which he hopped all around town. The film features song performances...
(1953) - Big LeaguerBig LeaguerBig Leaguer is a 1953 film. It starred Edward G. Robinson and was the first film directed by Robert Aldrich.Although this story is fiction, Robinson's character in it, Hans Lobert, was an actual baseball player who played for five Major League Baseball teams and managed the Philadelphia Phillies.-...
(1953) - Escape from Fort BravoEscape from Fort BravoEscape from Fort Bravo is a 1953 western film set during the American Civil War. It stars William Holden, Eleanor Parker, and John Forsythe.-Plot:...
(1953) - The High and the MightyThe High and the Mighty (film)The High and the Mighty is a 1954 American "disaster" film directed by William A. Wellman and written by Ernest K. Gann who also wrote the novel on which his screenplay was based. The film's cast was headlined by John Wayne, who was also the project's co-producer...
(1954) - Battle CryBattle Cry (film)Battle Cry is a 1955 CinemaScope film, starring Van Heflin, Aldo Ray, James Whitmore, Tab Hunter, Anne Francis, Dorothy Malone, Raymond Massey, and Mona Freeman...
(1955) - Man Without a StarMan Without a StarMan Without a Star is a 1955 western film starring Kirk Douglas as a wanderer who gets dragged into a range war. It was based on the novel of the same name by Dee Linford.-Plot:...
(1955) - Cell 2455 Death Row (1955)
- BacklashBacklash (1956 film)Backlash is a 1956 Technicolor film released by Universal-International Pictures. It was directed by John Sturges , and unfolds in the vein of the psychological Western Backlash is a 1956 Technicolor film released by Universal-International Pictures. It was directed by John Sturges (with whom...
(1956) - Love Me TenderLove Me Tender (1956 film)Love Me Tender is a 1956 American black-and-white CinemaScope motion picture directed by Robert D. Webb, and released by 20th Century Fox on November 21, 1956. The film, named after the song, stars Richard Egan, Debra Paget, and Elvis Presley in his film debut. It is in the Western genre with...
(1956) - Man in the VaultMan in the VaultMan in the Vault is a 1956 film noir about a locksmith, played by William Campbell, who is forced to help gangsters commit a robbery. It was based on the novel The Lock and the Key by Frank Gruber.-Cast:*William Campbell as Tommy Dancer...
(1956) - The Naked and the DeadThe Naked and the Dead (film)The Naked and the Dead is a 1958 widescreen film based on Norman Mailer's World War II novel The Naked and the Dead. Directed by Raoul Walsh and filmed in Panama the screenplay attributed to the Sanders Brothers adds a strip tease and larger action scenes to Mailer's original narrative...
(1958) - The Sheriff of Fractured JawThe Sheriff of Fractured JawThe Sheriff of Fractured Jaw is a 1958 British western comedy film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Kenneth More and Jayne Mansfield.-Synopsis:...
(1958) - The Young Racers (1963)
- Dementia 13Dementia 13Dementia 13 is a 1963 horror thriller released by American International Pictures, starring William Campbell, Patrick Magee, and Luana Anders. The film was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Roger Corman...
(1963) - The Secret InvasionThe Secret InvasionThe Secret Invasion is a 1964 Eastmancolor war film directed by Roger Corman that was filmed in Yugoslavia. In World War II, convicts are recruited by the Allies for an extremely hazardous mission...
(1964) - Hush… Hush, Sweet CharlotteHush… Hush, Sweet CharlotteHush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte is a 1964 American thriller film directed and produced by Robert Aldrich, and starring Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten, and Agnes Moorehead....
(1964) - Blood BathBlood BathBlood Bath is a 1966 horror film directed by Jack Hill and Stephanie Rothman. William Campbell stars as an artist with vampiric tendencies who kills beautiful women and dumps their bodies into a vat of boiling wax in his studio...
(1966) - Pretty Maids All in a RowPretty Maids All in a RowPretty Maids All in a Row is an American mystery film starring Rock Hudson and Angie Dickinson that is part dark comedy, part murder mystery. It was released on April 28, 1971, directed by Roger Vadim, and written and produced by Gene Roddenberry based on a novel by Francis Pollini.Pretty Maids was...
(1971)