Robert Carson

Robert Carson was a prolific mid-20th century character actor, racking up over 170 credits in 40 years of work. He got off to a fairly strong start, as one of a handful of agents in the 1939 crime mystery "Dick Tracy's G-Men." It did not, alas, begin of a rise through the ranks -- the majority of Carson's subsequent film roles were uncredited which, in those days, simply meant no on-screen billing. Over the '40s, '50s, and '60s, Carson played an army of detectives, captains, and numerous other military officers on film. He also, however, managed to work with many of the big names of the era, including legendary director Cecil B. DeMille and actor Charlton Heston, first as the ringmaster in 1952's circus drama "The Greatest Show on Earth" and then as the adult Eleazar in the 1956 biblical epic "The Ten Commandments." Carson made guest appearances on every genre of television show from the 1950s through the '70s, beginning with a solid run as several different characters on the western classic "The Lone Ranger" during the early '50s. From the late '50s to early '60s, he played a warden, a jury foreman, and a lieutenant on the anthology series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"; a captain, a sergeant, and another warden on the crime mystery "Perry Mason." By the mid-to-late '60s, he appeared in two post-"I Love Lucy" Lucille Ball shows. Carson passed away at age 69, four months before his last onscreen appearance in the crime drama "Hawaii Five-0."