Arthur Kennedy

Arthur Kennedy

Birth : 1914-02-17, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA

Death : 1990-01-05

History

John Arthur Kennedy (February 17, 1914 – January 5, 1990) was an American stage and film actor known for his versatility in supporting film roles and his ability to create "an exceptional honesty and naturalness on stage", especially in the original casts of Arthur Miller plays on Broadway. He won the 1949 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Miller's Death of a Salesman. He also won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for the 1955 film Trial, and was a five-time Academy Award nominee.

Profile

Arthur Kennedy
Arthur Kennedy

Movies

Signs of Life
Owen Coughlin
The closing of a small shipbuilder in New England places stresses on the people involved.
James Stewart: A Wonderful Life
Self (archive footage)
Documentary about James Stewart's long career as an actor and positive personal life.
The Humanoid
Dr. Kraspin
Hoping to overthrow his brother as ruler of the planet Metropolis, the evil Graal enlists the help of the insane Dr. Kraspin, who has invented a chemical capable of turning an ordinary person into a perfect soldier. They test this chemical on the pilot Golob, turning the unsuspecting victim into a mindless but indestructible automaton possessing superhuman strength. The people of Metropolis must somehow outwit Graal before he can create an army of these soldiers, or their planet will be destroyed.
Dirty World
Senator Merelli
Senator Alberici tries to approach the secretariat of his party with a campaign against immorality. In reality the politician is a pervert with homosexual tendencies that he expresses with men and women.
Cyclone
Priest
An airplane goes down in the ocean during a storm and a few survivors find refuge on a small tour boat. Swept out to sea, these people slowly starve to death in the hot sun with barely any food or clean water. With no place to turn, the boat survivors resort to cannibalism to stay alive...that is ..until the rescue planes come to pick them up and the man eating sharks decide its time to eat as well.
Cave of the Sharks
Mr. Jackson
When Andres and his partner are hired to recover some valuables from an airplane that went down in the Bermuda Triangle, they face not only human treachery but also the mysterious powers of an underwater civilization.
Last Angels
Il nonno
Elisabeth and Massimo have been separated for two years and decide to affirm their independence with a divorce. The person who suffers the most from the situation is their son Marco, who normally lives with his father in a beautiful, but lonely country house. Marco's only satisfaction comes from riding his horse Socrates around the countryside, but Massimo sends the horse to his father-in-law in Sicily when, tired of solitude, he decides to sell everything and move into town. At this point, Marco, who has by chance witnessed the kidnapping and release of Gilberto, decides to flee and pretend he has been kidnapped to gain his parents' attention. His journey to Sicily, where his maternal grandfather lives near Ragusa, is crammed full of adventures, but the child makes it in the end, thanks to Rocco, a Neapolitan street urchin, who befriends him.
Covert Action
CIA Chief of Station, Athens
Janssen plays an ex-CIA agent who has become an author, writing both non-fiction exposes (Phillip Agee was in the news at this time) and fiction spy novels. The CIA is on his case, in the person of Arthur Kennedy, CIA chief in Athens, where Janssen is staying. Janssen is pursuing a case that interests him, while dodging the traps set for him by Kennedy and trying to help Maurizio Merli, a former colleague with personal problems.
Nove ospiti per un delitto
Uberto
Nine members of an extremely rich and hateful family have decided to have a reunion on a remote island in the Mediterranean. No sooner than their arrival, old grudges, resentments, and feuds make themselves known, along with allusions to some more macabre events in their past. But when their boats are sabotaged, thus stranding them without any connection to the mainland, it becomes clear that someone is not willing to let old wounds heal, a fact made all the more clear as bodies start to pile up...
The Sentinel
Monsignor Franchino
A New York City model with a troubled past relocates to an apartment in a brownstone building where the only other tenant is a withdrawn blind priest. After experiencing strange occurrences, she begins to realize her building houses a sinister evil.
Rome, Armed to the Teeth
Vice questore Ruini
A tough, violent cop who doesn't mind bending the law goes after a machine-gun-carrying, hunchbacked psychotic killer.
Emmanuelle on Taboo Island
Antonio
Daniel is washed ashore after a shipwreck and discovers the beautiful Haydee in a tropical island paradise. However, Haydee's father and brother aren't as willing to accept their romance.
Ab morgen sind wir reich und ehrlich
Mike Jannacone
A couple of friends aspiring to join film land get mixed up in a robbery, ordered by a mafia boss who wants to seize the evidence he needs to blackmail an American politician.
La polizia ha le mani legate
Armando Di Federico
The investigation of the bombing of a hotel lobby as seen through the eyes of a young detective.
The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue
The Inspector
When a series of murders hit the remote English countryside, a detective suspects a pair of travelers when it is actually the work of the undead, jarred back to life by an experimental ultra-sonic radiation machine used by the Ministry of Agriculture to kill insects.
The Antichrist
Bishop Ascanio Oderisi
An Italian nobleman seeks help after his paralyzed daughter becomes possessed by the spirit of a malevolent ancestress.
Nakia
Sheriff Sam Jericho
An American Indian deputy sheriff is caught in the middle of a community dispute when the tribe tries to save an historic mission from a housing developer. This TV pilot film was an ABC Movie of the Week and later became a TV series.
The President's Plane Is Missing
Gunther Damon
When the President's plane mysteriously disappears with him on board, it is left to the seemingly weak Vice President to try to avert a nuclear exchange with the Chinese.
Ricco
Don Vito
Fresh out of the joint, young Ricco is eager to get home to see his family. He was cut loose a year early for good behavior, but it certainly wasn't good behavior that got him in the big house in the first place. Two years prior, Ricco took it upon himself to go after Don Avito, the man who killed his pappy and took his girlfriend. Yet Ricco came out of prison a changed man. He had a lot of time to think, and the anger and thirst for revenge is no longer there, much to his mother's chagrin. She is quite upset that her son is not interested in paying back Don Avito for his deeds, and she needles Ricco relentlessly until he reluctantly gives in to her demands.
Family Killer
Don Angelino Ferrante
Stefano, son of the Mafia Don Angelino Ferrante, is killed by Gaspare Ardizzone (John Saxon) for refusing to sell some valuable land. The old don sends for Ferrante Santino Billeci from America, in the hope that he'll be able to help in getting revenge. But Gaspar, meanwhile, is becoming the most powerful and ruthless boss of the area...
Crawlspace
Albert Graves
A childless middle-age couple adopt a troubled youth they find living in their crawlspace and attempt to get him to rejoin society with tragic results.
A Death of Innocence
Mark Hirsch
A mother travels to New York to see her daughter who is awaiting trial for murder. The mother is totally convinced of her daughter's innocence and does all she can to help her. As the trial progresses however, the mother begins to have doubts.
My Old Man's Place
Walter Pell
Two soldiers return from Vietnam with serious PTSD. They decide to go for a couple of days to a peaceful farm owned by the father of one of the men. A psychotic sergeant who also did tours in Nam, joins them. Personalities clash hard.
The Movie Murderer
Angus MacGregor
An experienced arson investigator takes along his young associate as they try to find an arsonist who is burning down movie sets.
Shark!
Doc
A gunrunner loses his cargo near a small coastal Sudanese town so he's stuck there. When a woman hires him to raid a sunken ship in the shark-infested waters, he sees a chance to compensate for his losses. He's not the only one.
Hail, Hero!
Albert Dixon
Carl Dixon decides to quit school and enlist in the Army, even though he's already run afoul of the law as a Vietnam protestor. It is our hero's intention to use love, rather than bullets, to combat the Viet Cong. Needless to say, his idealism is no match for the harsher realities of war.
Anzio
Maj. Gen. Jack Lesley
Allied forces land at Anzio unopposed but instead of moving straight inland their commanding officer decides to dig in. A battle-hardened war correspondent borrows a jeep and drives to Rome and back without meeting any German forces, but his report on this absence of the enemy is discounted. By the time it is finally decided to make a move the Germans have arrived in strength and a prolonged ...
Day of the Evil Gun
Owen Forbes
Two men on a desperate search to save a woman only one of them could have!
A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die
Tuscosa Marshal Roy W. Colby
A famous gunman decides to change his life around and turn himself in when amnesty is declared by the new governor of the New Mexico Territory, but a vindictive sheriff sets out to stop him from reaching the Territory.
La chica del lunes
Peter Richardson
The daughter of an American marriage in Puerto Rico forces her parents to find a doll that her father mistakenly sent in a box of aid during a flood.
Fantastic Voyage
Dr. Duval
In order to save an assassinated scientist, a submarine and its crew are shrunk to microscopic size and injected into his bloodstream.
Nevada Smith
Bill Bowdre
Nevada Smith is the young son of an Indian mother and white father. When his father is killed by three men over gold, Nevada sets out to find them and kill them. The boy is taken in by a gun merchant. The gun merchant shows him how to shoot and to shoot on time and correct.
Joy in the Morning
Patrick Brown
Carl Brown and Annie McGairy are in love. Their Irish immigrant parents knew each other in the old country - and Carl's parents want better for their son than Annie, who was raised in the slums. When Annie runs away to marry Carl while he's at college, they have many difficulties, including a college Dean that frowns upon married couples, Carl's angry parents, Carl's jealousy, and Annie's own problems with her sexuality.
Murieta
Capt. Love
The fictionalized story of Joaquin Murrieta, a real life Mexican bandit who terrorized California with his gang of raiders and cutthroats during the first half of the 19th century. Some saw him as a murderous outlaw, others as the Mexican Robin Hood.
Cheyenne Autumn
Doc Holliday
A reluctant cavalry Captain must track a defiant tribe of migrating Cheyenne.
Attack and Retreat
Ferro Maria Ferri
Chronicle of the unheralded and unsuccessful invasion of the Soviet Union by the Italian army during World War II.
Lawrence of Arabia
Jackson Bentley
The story of British officer T.E. Lawrence's mission to aid the Arab tribes in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Lawrence becomes a flamboyant, messianic figure in the cause of Arab unity but his psychological instability threatens to undermine his achievements.
Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man
Dr. Henry Adams
Young and restless Nick Adams, the only son of a domineering mother and a weak but noble doctor father, leaves his rural Michigan home to embark on an eventful cross-country journey. He is touched and affected by his encounters with a punch-drunk ex-boxer, a sympathetic telegrapher, and an alcoholic advanceman for a burlesque show. After failing to get a job as reporter in New York, he enlists in the Italian army during World War I as an ambulance driver. His camaraderie with fellow soldiers and a romance with a nurse he meets after being wounded propel him to manhood.
Barabbas
Pontius Pilate
Epic account of the thief Barabbas, who was pardoned for his crimes and spared crucifixion when Pilate offered the Israelites a choice to pardon Barabbas or Jesus. Struggling with his spirituality, Barabbas goes through many ordeals leading him to the gladiatorial arena, where he tries to win his freedom and confront his inner demons, ultimately becoming a follower of the man who was crucified in his place.
Murder She Said
Paul Quimper
Miss Marple believes she's seen a murder in a passing-by train, yet when the police find no evidence she decides to investigate it on her own.
Claudelle Inglish
Clyde Inglish
A young daughter of poor farmers is forced by her mother to ditch her young boyfriend in order to marry an old rich neighbor but the girl rebels by becoming the town's harlot.
Elmer Gantry
Jim Lefferts
When hedonistic but charming con man Elmer Gantry meets the beautiful Sister Sharon Falconer, a roadside revivalist, he feigns piousness to join her act as a passionate preacher. The two make a successful onstage pair, and their chemistry extends to romance. Both the show and their relationship are threatened, however, when one of Gantry's ex-lovers decides that she has a score to settle with the charismatic performer.
A Summer Place
Bart Hunter
A self-made businessman rekindles a romance with a former flame while their two teenage children begin a romance of their own with drastic consequences for both couples.
Home Is the Hero
Willie O'Reilly
This well-acted drama about an Irishman just released from jail is filled with rich characterization. The story is adapted from a stage play by Walter Macken who also plays the role of the ex-convict Paddo in this screen version. Direction is by J. Fielder Cook. Once Paddo returns home after being sentenced to five years for killing a man, his old friends try to put him back in their niche of local hero but Paddo will have none of it. He is disillusioned and changed. His son Willie (Arthur Kennedy) walks with a limp that keeps him too self-conscious to assert himself as he would like with the young woman of his dreams. While other people come in and out of Paddo's life, from his taciturn friend the trapper to the local tinker, it is Paddo's son Willie suffering from his own disability who makes the difference in his father's life.
Some Came Running
Frank Hirsh
Hard-drinking novelist Dave Hirsh returns home after being gone for years. His brother wants Dave to settle down and introduces him to English teacher Gwen French. Moody Dave resents his brother and spends his days hanging out with Bama Dillert, a professional gambler who parties late into the night. Torn between the admiring Gwen and Ginny Moorehead, an easy woman who loves him, Dave grows increasingly angry.
Twilight for the Gods
First Mate Ramsay
An alcoholic captain sails a two-master through danger with a call girl and others on board.
Peyton Place
Lucas Cross
In the outwardly respectable New England community of Peyton Place, shopkeeper Constance McKenzie tries to make up for a past indiscretion -- which resulted in her illegitimate daughter Allison -- by adopting a chaste, prudish attitude towards all things sexual. In spite of herself, Constance can't help but be attracted to handsome new teacher Michael Rossi. Meanwhile, the restless Allison, who'd like to be as footloose and fancy-free as the town's "fast girl" Betty Anderson, falls sincerely in love with mixed-up mama's boy Norman Page.
The Rawhide Years
Rick Harper
Ben Matthews gives up the flashy life of a riverboat gambler, hoping to settle down in Galena with his girlfriend, luscious entertainer Zoe. But Galena's leading citizen is murdered on the boat; Ben, on arrival, finds a lynch mob after his neck, and flees. Three years of wandering later, Zoe's letters stop coming and Ben returns to find her and attempt the hopeless task of clearing himself.
The Naked Dawn
Santiago
Santiago, a jolly modern bandito, has just lost his partner when he happens on the isolated farm of young Manuel and Maria Lopez...
Trial
Barney Castle
A Mexican boy accused of rape and murder becomes a pawn for Communists and red-baiters.
The Desperate Hours
Deputy Sheriff Jesse Bard
Escaped convicts terrorize a suburban family they're holding hostage.
The Man from Laramie
Vic Hansbro
Will Lockhart arrives in Coronado, an isolated town in New Mexico, in search of someone who sells rifles to the Apache tribe, finding himself unwillingly drawn into the convoluted life of a local ranching family whose members seem to have a lot to hide.
Crashout
Joe Quinn
Convict Van Duff engineers a large-scale prison break; the six survivors hide out in a forgotten mine working near the prison, then set out on a long, dangerous journey by foot, car, train and truck to retrieve Duff's bank loot. En route, as they touch the lives of "regular folks," each has his own rendezvous with destiny.
Impulse
Alan Curtis
An American realtor living in England is dissatisfied with what he believes to be his humdrum life. One weekend while his wife is out of town, he gives a ride to a woman he sees stranded on the road. One thing leads to another, and he soon finds himself enmeshed in a plot involving a diamond robbery, gangsters and murder.
The Lusty Men
Wes Merritt
Retired rodeo champion Jeff McCloud agrees to mentor novice rodeo contestant Wes Merritt against the wishes of Merritt's wife who fears the dangers of this rough sport.
The Girl in White
Dr. Ben Barringer
The first female doctor in New York City comes up against prejudice from male counterparts who feel threatened by her skills. Eventually, though, they come to respect her and romance blossoms between her and the head doctor.
Rancho Notorious
Vern Haskell
A man in search of revenge infiltrates a ranch, hidden in an inhospitable region, where its owner, Altar Keane, gives shelter to outlaws fleeing from the law in exchange for a price.
Bend of the River
Emerson Cole
Two men with questionable pasts, Glyn McLyntock and his friend Cole, lead a wagon-train load of homesteaders from Missouri to the Oregon territory...
Red Mountain
Lane Waldron
Towards the end of the American Civil War, a rebel captain flees to Colorado to join a band of Southern mercenaries. He drags an innocent gold prospecting couple into trouble when the husband is accused of a murder he committed.
Bright Victory
Larry Nevins
A soldier blinded in war returns home and attempts to adjust to civilian life.
The Glass Menagerie
Tom Wingfield
An aging Southern Belle makes life horrible for her ambitious son and crippled daughter because of her dreams of what life should be.
Chicago Deadline
Tommy Ditman
On Chicago's South Side reporter Ed Ames finds the body of a dead girl. Her address book leads to a host of names of men frightened by her death but claiming never to have known her. Ames comes to know quite a lot, dangerously so.
Too Late for Tears
Alan Palmer
Through a fluke circumstance, a ruthless woman stumbles across a suitcase filled with $60,000, and is determined to hold onto it even if it means murder
The Window
Ed Woodry
An imaginative boy who frequently makes things up witnesses a murder, but can't get his parents or the police to believe him. The only people taking him seriously are the killers - who live upstairs, know that he saw what they did, and are out to permanently silence him.
Champion
Connie Kelly
An unscrupulous boxer fights his way to the top, but eventually alienates all of the people who helped him on the way up.
The Walking Hills
Chalk
A study in greed in which treasure hunters seek a shipment of gold buried in Death Valley.
Cheyenne
The Sundance Kid
Slick gambler James Wylie (Dennis Morgan) is apprehended by the law and given the option to forgo a prison sentence if he poses as a bandit. His mission is to uncover the identity of the Poet, a notorious outlaw who has been holding up bank-owned stagecoaches and leaving verses at the crime scenes to taunt the authorities. James finds time to woo the Poet's lovely wife, Ann (Jane Wyman), who initially cold-shoulders him. But, as a romance develops, they partner up to find the robber.
Boomerang!
John Waldron
In a quiet Connecticut town, a kindly priest is murdered while waiting at a street corner. The citizens are horrified and demand action from the police. All of the witnesses identify John Waldron, a nervous out-of-towner, as the killer. Although Waldron vehemently denies the crime, no one will believe him. District Attorney Henry Harvey is then put on the case and faces political opposition in his attempt to prove Waldron's innocence. Based on a true story.
It's Your America
Soldier / Narrator (uncredited)
This short--long rumored to have been directed by John Ford--was produced by the US government specifically for veterans returning home from World War II, showing them what their responsibilities as citizens were now that they were returning to civilian life.
Devotion
Branwell Brontë
In Victorian England, literary siblings Emily and Charlotte Brontë vie for the affection of the Rev. Arthur Nicholls. Along with their sister Anne, Emily and Charlotte also try to help their tormented brother Branwell, a gifted artist whose life is being destroyed by alcohol.
Target - Invisible
Air Force Officer / Narrator
Documentary short film depicting the uses of radar in high-level bombing during World War II. B-29 bombers are shown delivering bombs over Japan and using radar to make pinpoint accurate target assessments despite overcast conditions.
The Last Bomb
Crewman (voice)
Documentary of the planning and delivery of the last great bomber attack on the city of Tokyo by the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II.
Resisting Enemy Interrogation
Sgt. Alfred Mason
A downed American bomber crew quickly falls prey to the clever interrogation techniques of the Germans in this dramatic training film.
The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress
(uncredited)
This WW2 documentary centers on the crew of the American B-17 Flying Fortress Memphis Belle as it prepares to execute a strategic bombing raid on Nazi submarine pens in Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
Troop Carrier Airplanes: Cockpit Procedure
Capt. Mathews
This U.S. Army Air Forces documentary short film depicts training methods and instructions for pilots of the C-47 Skytrain troop carrier aircraft. Lieutenant Warren is shown being put through his training paces by his instructor, Captain Mathews, who shows Warren the correct procedures and checklists for preparation for takeoff, takeoff, automatic pilot functioning, feathering a malfunctioning engine, and landing on one engine. Upon landing, Lt. Warren is instructed in taxiing and shut-down of the aircraft.
Flight Characteristics of the P-51 Airplane
Bob Chilton
U.S. Army Air Force pilot Bob Chilton and North American Aircraft designer Arthur Deeds show an Air Force colonel and major the new P-51B aircraft, explaining the changes in this new model and taking the plane through its paces with full description of its flight characteristics.
Ditch and Live
Captain Scott H. Reynolds
Lt. Scott Reynolds is co-pilot on a B-17 bomber. When his ship is forced to ditch at sea, only Reynolds survives. The nine other crew members died as a result of insufficient training in ditching procedure. Sent back to the States and promoted, Captain Reynolds takes command of a new B-17 and indoctrinates his crew carefully in the proper methods of preparation for ditching and for survival at sea thereafter.
Air Force
Bombardier
The crew of an Air Force bomber arrives in Pearl Harbor in the aftermath of the Japanese attack and is sent on to Manila to help with the defense of the Philippines.
Reconnaissance Pilot
Decoration Announcer (voice)
Documentary/training film depicting the duties of a pilot in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War as he flies reconnaissance missions over enemy-held islands.
How to Fly the B-17 (Part 2, Flight Operations)
Instructor
Military training film in which an instructor trains a new B-17 bomber pilot in proper procedure and technique while airborne.
How to Fly the B-17 (Part 1, Ground Operations)
Instructor
Military training film in which an instructor takes a new B-17 bomber pilot through preflight inspections of the aircraft and preparation for departure.
Desperate Journey
Jed Forrest
During WWII, when an allied bomber is shot down over Germany, the five surviving crew are captured but cleverly escape detention after learning German secret information and knocking out a Nazi major. With the angry major in hot pursuit, aided by military personnel, Gestapo agents and Hitler-loyal citizens, the five wend their way across perilous Germany, intent on reaching the UK with the secrets they have learned.
Breakdowns of 1942
Self
This is a collection of bloopers and film manipulation by The Warner Studio Club for an annual dinner for the staff at Warner Brothers.
They Died with Their Boots On
Ned Sharp
The story follows General George Armstrong Custer's adventures from his West Point days to his death. He defies orders during the Civil War, trains the 7th Cavalry, appeases Chief Crazy Horse and later engages in bloody battle with the Sioux nation.
Highway West
George Foster
A young woman marries a man who turns out to be a bank robber.
Bad Men of Missouri
Jim Younger
The Younger brothers return to Missouri after the Civil War with intent to avenge the misdeeds of William Merrick, a crooked banker who has been buying up warrants on back-taxes and dispossessing the farmers.
Strange Alibi
Sgt. Joe Geary
An undercover cop finds himself on the wrong side of the law when the mob discovers his true identity.
Knockout
Johnny Rocket
Johnny Rocket (Arthur Kennedy) needs to fight one more match to have enough money to get married to Angela (Olympe Bradna) and start on his dream to run and then own a gym. However, his manager makes sure that this does not happen and eventually Johnny embraces being a fighter, but Angela becomes increasingly unhappy.
High Sierra
Red
Given a pardon from jail, Roy Earle gets back into the swing of things as he robs a swanky resort.
City for Conquest
Eddie Kenny
The heartbreaking but hopeful tale of Danny Kenny and Peggy Nash, two sweethearts who meet and struggle through their impoverished lives in New York City. When Peggy, hoping for something better in life for both of them, breaks off her engagement to Danny, he sets out to be a championship boxer, while she becomes a dancer paired with a sleazy partner. Will tragedy reunite the former lovers?