Bradford Dillman

San Francisco, California, USA

Biography

Bradford Dillman was an American stage, screen, and television actor, as well as an author starred in the taut crime drama Compulsion (1959). The lanky, dark-haired Dillman also played Robert Redford's best friend J.J. in The Way We Were (1973). Dillman also appeared opposite Clint Eastwood in the Dirty Harry films The Enforcer (1976) and Sudden Impact (1983). In director Richard Fleischer's Compulsion, derived from the infamous Leopold & Loeb case of the 1920s, Dillman and Stockwell starred as the brazen killers Arthur A. Straus and Judd Steiner, respectively, who think they have committed the perfect murder. Dillman, Stockwell and Orson Welles (who played their attorney) shared best actor honors at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival. The Fox film was an adaptation of a Broadway hit, with Dillman taking on the role that Roddy McDowall had originated on the stage.

Movies

King's Crossing is an American nighttime soap opera which aired on ABC from January 16, 1982 to February 27, 1982 on Saturday Night at 8:00pm for seven episodes. Its roots can be found in the 1980 drama Secrets of Midland Heights, which aired on CBS for eight episodes. When that show was canceled, Lorimar Productions announced it would return in a retooled format; King's Crossing was a completely different show, but employed several actors who had also appeared in the earlier drama. The show centered around the Hollister family relocating to King's Crossing, California. The father, Paul, was a recovering alcoholic who was hoping for a fresh start with his family and career as an English professor at the town's college. His long-suffering wife Nan was also trying to reestablish a connection with her cold and distant Aunt Louisa Beauchamp, who had never approved of Paul. Nan and Paul had two teenage daughters: Lauren, an aspiring pianist who fell into an affair with her piano teacher, symphony conductor Jonathan Hadary, and Carey, a student curious about Aunt Louisa and family secrets. One of those secrets involved a mysterious person hidden away in an attic room; that person turned out to be their crippled cousin Jillian. Carey tried to restore Jillian's confidence and draw her further into the family, much to Aunt Louisa's consternation. Louisa's attempts to hide family secrets and the true story behind Jillian's accident were not revealed before the show was canceled.

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King's Crossing
1982

Matinee Theater is an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from 1955 to 1958. The series, which ran daily in the afternoon, was frequently live. It was produced by Albert McCleery, Darrell Ross, George Cahan and Frank Price with executive producer George Lowther. McCleery had previously produced the live series Cameo Theatre which introduced to television the concept of theater-in-the-round, TV plays staged with minimal sets. Jim Buckley of the Pewter Plough Playhouse recalled: When Al McCleery got back to the States, he originated a most ambitious theatrical TV series for NBC called Matinee Theater: to televise five different stage plays per week live, airing around noon in order to promote color TV to the American housewife as she labored over her ironing. Al was the producer. He hired five directors and five art directors. Richard Bennett, one of our first early presidents of the Pewter Plough Corporation, was one of the directors and I was one of the art directors and, as soon as we were through televising one play, we had lunch and then met to plan next week’s show. That was over 50 years ago, and I’m trying to think; I believe the TV art director is his own set decorator —yes, of course! It had to be, since one of McCleery’s chief claims to favor with the producers was his elimination of the setting per se and simply decorating the scene with a minimum of props. It took a bit of ingenuity.

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Matinee Theater
1955