Whitner Nutting "Whit" Bissell (25 October 1909 – 5 March 1996) was an American character actor.
Biography
Born in New York City, Bissell trained with the Carolina Playmakers, a theatrical organization associated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He had a number of roles in Broadway theatre, including the Air Force show Winged Victory, when he was a private.
In a career that began in 1943 with the film Holy Matrimony, Bissell appeared in literally hundreds of films and television series episodes.
Viewers of 1950s low-budget science fiction, horror films and B movies know him as one of "those actors" (perhaps the actor) that always shows up somewhere in such movies. Some of the most well-known of these roles were as a mad scientist in the 1957 film I Was a Teenage Werewolf, as well as Professor Frankenstein in Teenage Frankenstein (1957). He also played the psychiatrist who treats Kevin McCarthy's character in the 1956 classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and in the original 1954 Creature from the Black Lagoon.
In 1960, he appeared in George Pál's production of The Time Machine, as Walter Kemp, one of the Time Traveler's dining friends. Thirty-three years later, in the Time Machine: The Journey Back, reunited with Rod Taylor and Alan Young from the original, he recreated his role as Walter in the opening sequence. It was Bissell's last acting performance.
Bissell was a regular for the third and fourth seasons of the television series Bachelor Father (1959-1961), costarring John Forsythe, Noreen Corcoran, and Sammee Tong. He appeared as a guest star in practically every dramatic television series that aired between the early 1950s and the mid 1970s, with more sporadic appearances after that.
His most prominent television role came when he co-starred as General Heywood Kirk in the 1966-1967 science-fiction television series The Time Tunnel. He often played silver-haired figures of authority, here as in many other roles (as described by Allmovie), "instantly establishing his standard screen characterization of fussy officiousness," leavened in many instances with a military bearing. Other examples of such authoritative roles as military or police officials, include appearances in The Manchurian Candidate, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Outer Limits.
Star Trek fans knew Bissell from his appearance in the classic episode "The Trouble with Tribbles", footage of which was re-used in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's "Trials and Tribble-ations".
Bissell's most-screened motion picture role is as the undertaker (who sees every man, no matter his race, as "just another future customer") in The Magnificent Seven (1960).
Bissell received a life career award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films in 1994. He also served for many years on the board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild, as well as representing the actors branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences board of governors.
Bissell was married three times and had three daughters and a stepson.
Bissell died in 1996 in Woodland Hills, California from the effects of Parkinson's disease. He was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
External links
Whit Bissell at the Internet Movie Database
Whit Bissell at Allmovie
Great Character Actors entry
Whit Bissell article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
Whit Bissell at Find A Grave
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whit_Bissell"
Categories: 1909 births | 1996 deaths | American film actors | American stage actors | American television actors | People from New York City | Deaths from Parkinson's disease
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This page was last modified on 19 September 2008, at 00:48.
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