Brad Dexter(1917-2002)
- Actor
- Producer
American supporting player specializing in tough guys. Of Serbian
extraction, he was born in Nevada in 1917. As a young man, he boxed in
amateur bouts and had early training in theatre at the Pasadena
Playhouse. He joined the Air Corps during World War II and was assigned
to the troupe performing the Moss Hart Broadway tribute to the Corps,
Winged Victory, acting under his first chosen stage name, Barry
Mitchell. He appeared in the film version of the show, and after the
war became active in radio drama as well as theatre. John Huston spotted
him in a play and cast him as a bad guy in The Asphalt Jungle (1950), under the new
sobriquet of Brad Dexter. Throughout the Fifties, he continued to play
hard cases of a usually villainous stripe, in both crime dramas and
Westerns. His most famous role came as one of title characters in
Bảy Tay Súng Huyền Thoại (1960), albeit his fame was considerably eclipsed by most of the other
members of that band: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Horst Buchholz, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, and
James Coburn. He continued acting into the 1970s, then made a shift into
producing.