William Bendix

 William Bendix (January 14, 1906 – December 14, 1964)

He is best remembered for his role in Wake Island, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also portrayed the clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in both the radio and television versions of The Life of Riley, and baseball player Babe Ruth in The Babe Ruth Story. Bendix was a frequent co-star of Alan Ladd, the two appearing in ten films together. Bendix also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat" (1944), as Gus, the wounded sailor who has his leg amputated and is then thrown into the sea by the Nazi villain. His other films include "Woman of the Year" (1942), "The Glass Key" (1942), "The Blue Dahlia" (1946), "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1949), "Detective Story" (1951), and "Macao" (1952). In addition, Bendix played the lead in Rod Serling's "The Time Element" (1958), a time-travel adventure episode about a man who travels back to 1941 and unsuccessfully tries to warn everyone in Honolulu about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor; the program's success opened the doors for Serling's later series The Twilight Zone. Bendix married a childhood friend, Theresa Stefanotti, on October 22, 1927. They remained married until his death 37 years later in 1964. The couple had a daughter, Lorraine, and adopted another, Stephanie. Bendix died in Los Angeles at age 58 in 1964 as the result of a chronic stomach ailment that brought on malnutrition and ultimately lobar pneumonia. He is buried at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, California.