Med Flory
Prior to launching his film and television career in 1961, Med Flory had already established himself as a successful musician, primarily as a clarinetist and saxophonist. He played with New York bands in the mid-1950s before moving to the West coast, eventually forming the band Supersax--a group heavily influenced by Charlie Parker--with Buddy Clark in the early 1970s. Flory's primary genre was Westerns, with recurring parts on such TV classics as "The Virginian," "Gunsmoke," and "Bonanza," where he played Clint Rush. His film career, which was more modest than his long TV biography, and included several uncredited parts, began with a prominent role in the Western "Gun Street," and even though the majority of his film projects were low profile, they continued steadily into the early 1980s. Flory's meatiest TV roles included that of Bingen in the adventure Western "Daniel Boone," and as "Father" and several other characters on the family drama "Lassie," both from the mid-1960s to early 1970s. He also appeared in several well-established crime dramas, from "Perry Mason" in the early 1960s, to "Starsky and Hutch" in the mid-1970s, to an episode of "Hunter" in 1989. The six-foot-five-inch Flory played alto saxophone in Supersax, which won a jazz Grammy in 1973, and was nominated for another in 1975.