Wendell Corey

Dependable lead and supporting player who usually played solid, sober and sometimes cynical characters. After scoring a triumph on Broadway in Elmer Rice's "Dream Girl" (1945), Corey was signed by producer Hal Wallis, and over the next two decades appeared as combination servant-strongarm henchman to gambler John Hodiak in Corey's debut film, "Desert Fury" (1947), as a homicide detective opposite Loretta Young in the thriller, "The Accused" (1948), as an exhausted mobster in "Any Number Can Play" (1949) and as Frank James in "The Great Missouri Raid" (1951). He later moved into politics, serving as the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Screen Actors Guild and, lastly, as a member of the Santa Monica City Council.