Karl Swenson
Birth : 1908-07-23,
Death : 1978-10-08
History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karl Swenson (July 23, 1908 – October 8, 1978) was an American theatre, radio, film, and television actor. Early in his career, he was credited as Peter Wayne
Swenson was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Swedish parentage. Planning to be a doctor, he enrolled at Marietta College and undertook pre-medical studies but left that field to pursue acting.
Swenson appeared extensively on the radio from the 1930s through the 1950s.
Swenson entered the film industry in 1943 with two wartime documentary shorts, December 7 and The Sikorsky Helicopter, followed by more than thirty-five roles in feature films and television movies. No Name on the Bullet (1959) is only one of the many westerns in which he performed for both film and television.
Swenson is remembered for his role as the doomsayer in the diner in Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Birds (1963) and had roles in The Prize (1963), Major Dundee (1965), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and Seconds (1966). In 1967, Swenson appeared in the western Hour of the Gun, and played the role of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in the western film Brighty of the Grand Canyon, with co-stars Pat Conway and Joseph Cotten. His later film appearances included roles in ...tick...tick...tick... (1970), The Wild Country (1970), Vanishing Point (1971) and Ulzana's Raid (1972).
Swenson was married to actress Joan Tompkins.
Swenson died of a heart attack at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington, Connecticut on October 8, 1978, shortly after filming the Little House on the Prairie episode in which his character dies. The episode aired on October 16, 1978, eight days after Swenson's death. Swenson was interred at Center Cemetery in New Milford, Connecticut. CLR
Merlin (voice) (archive footage)
Contains memorable scenes from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "Fantasia," "Lady and the Tramp," "Peter Pan," "One Hundred and One Dalmatians," and "The Sword in the Stone."
Adams
In the days of the "Wild West," a gunslinger, with a price on his head, discovers the body of a traveling minister who has been killed in an ambush. Fearing those who are following him, he assumes the dead minister's identity.
Rukeyser
Report reaches the US cavalry that the Apache leader Ulzana has left his reservation with a band of followers. A compassionate young officer, Lieutenant DeBuin, is given a small company to find him and bring him back; accompanying the troop is McIntosh, an experienced scout, and Ke-Ni-Tay, an Apache guide. Ulzana massacres, rapes and loots across the countryside; and as DeBuin encounters the remains of his victims, he is compelled to learn from McIntosh and to confront his own naivity and hidden prejudices.
Apperson
A disillusioned housewife on a vacation in the woods is disturbed by her husband continually trying to get her to come home and, more ominously, a mysterious howling at night.
Clerk
Kowalski works for a car delivery service, and takes delivery of a 1970 Dodge Challenger to drive from Colorado to San Francisco. Shortly after pickup, he takes a bet to get the car there in less than 15 hours.
Jensen
Uprooted from their comfortable home in Pennsylvania, James and Kate Tanner, along with their sons, Virgil and Andy, journey to the wild country of 1890s Wyoming to become farmers. Soon, they come face-to-face with tornadoes, bears and wolves. But through the hardships their love for each other endures, even when a local rancher sees the newcomers as "squatters" on his land, and will stop at nothing – including murder – to drive them out.
Frank Braddock Sr.
Racial tensions threaten to explode when a black man is elected sheriff of a small, racially divided town in the Deep South.
Dr. Charles Goodfellow
Marshal Wyatt Earp kills a couple of men of the Clanton-gang in a fight. In revenge Clanton's thugs kill the marshal's brother. Thus, Wyatt Earp starts to chase the killers together with his friend Doc Holliday.
Theodore Roosevelt
At the turn of the century in the Southwest, Brighty the wild burro accompanies his friend, a prospector named Old Timer, on a hunt for gold. A claim jumper robs the pair of their strike, killing Old Timer in the process. Brighty then sets out on a quest -- befriending a mountain lion hunter along the way -- to bring Old Timer's murderer to justice in this drama based on the best-seller by Marguerite Henry.
Dr. Morris
An unhappy middle-aged banker agrees to a procedure that will fake his death and give him a completely new look and identity – one that comes with its own price.
Mr. Rudd
An up-and-coming poker player tries to prove himself in a high-stakes match against a long-time master of the game.
Doc Isdell
The four sons of Katie Elder reunite in their Hometown of Clearwater, Texas for their Mother's funeral, and discover that the family ranch is now in the hands of Morgan Hastings, the town's gunsmith.
Captain Waller
During the last winter of the Civil War, cavalry officer Amos Dundee leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners and scouts on an expedition into Mexico to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding U.S. bases in Texas.
Hilding
A group of Nobel laureates descends on Stockholm to accept their awards. Among them is American novelist Andrew Craig, a former literary luminary now writing pulp detective stories to earn a living. Craig, who is infamous for his drinking and womanizing, formulates a wild theory that physics prize winner Dr. Max Stratman has been replaced by an impostor, embroiling Craig and his chaperone in a Cold War kidnapping plot.
Merlin (voice)
Wart is a young boy who aspires to be a knight's squire. On a hunting trip he falls in on Merlin, a powerful but amnesiac wizard who has plans for him beyond mere squiredom. He starts by trying to give him an education, believing that once one has an education, one can go anywhere. Needless to say, it doesn't quite work out that way.
Sheriff
Circuit-riding Texas lawyer Timothy Higgins defends a former girlfriend against a murder charge stemming from an extortionist's threat to reveal her shady past. Through adroit courtroom work, Higgins is able to acquit her and reveal who actually shot the fatal bullet.
Drunken Doomsayer in Diner
Chic socialite Melanie Daniels enjoys a passing flirtation with an eligible attorney in a San Francisco pet shop and, on an impulse, follows him to his hometown bearing a gift of lovebirds. But upon her arrival, the bird population runs amok. Suddenly, the townsfolk face a massive avian onslaught, with the feathered fiends inexplicably attacking people all over Bodega Bay.
Train Conductor (uncredited)
The epic tale of the development of the American West from the 1830s through the Civil War to the end of the century, as seen through the eyes of one pioneer family.
Insp. Bevers
A selfish and prideful young Dutch doctor, through a series of circumstances, comes to learn that he does indeed "need" a higher spiritual being and other people.
Rev. Hoskins
A fiercely independent cowboy arranges to have himself locked up in jail in order to then escape with an old friend who has been sentenced to the penitentiary.
Schmidt
At the Doll House, a 1930s New Orleans bordello, Hallie is the main attraction both for clients and for Jo, the madame. Her comfortable if tedious life is disrupted by the arrival in town of Dove Linkhorn, her true love of three years before who is now searching for her. When Linkhorn learns the truth of her profession he triggers a chain of events involving a number of people, including the young Kitty with whom he travelled from Texas and who is now the Doll House newest recruit.
Heinrich Geuter
In 1947, four German judges who served on the bench during the Nazi regime face a military tribunal to answer charges of crimes against humanity. Chief Justice Haywood hears evidence and testimony not only from lead defendant Ernst Janning and his defense attorney Hans Rolfe, but also from the widow of a Nazi general, an idealistic U.S. Army captain and reluctant witness Irene Wallner.
Dred Pierce
Sam Burton's second wife is a Kiowa, and their son is therefore born mixed-race. When a struggle starts between the whites and the native Kiowas, the Burton family is split between loyalties.
Lars Nordqvist
Sam and George strike gold in Alaska. George sends Sam to Seattle to bring George's fiancé back to Alaska. Sam finds she is already married, and returns instead with Angel. Sam, after trying to get George and Angel together, finally romances Angel, who, in the meantime, is busy fighting off the advances of George's younger brother, Billy.
Sheriff Ole Olson
Mitch Barrett becomes embittered because his wife is allowed to die when he can't pay for the medicine she needs. The remorseful townspeople hire Mitch to be a deputy sheriff, thereby enabling him to plot an elaborate bank robbery with the help of an artist, a pickpocket, a gunslinger and a bar-girl.
Bill Bailey
A semi-documentary dramatization of five weeks in the life of Vice Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, Jr., from his assignment to command the U.S. naval operations in the South Pacific to the Allied victory at Guadalcanal.
Scotty Ballantyne
Alaska: America's last great wilderness frontier. A land of primitive grandeur, of glaciers, mountains and ice-fields. And of ambitious cannery tycoon Zeb "Czar" Kennedy (Richard Burton) and rugged activist leader Thor Storm (Robert Ryan), two rough-hewn men whose bitter 40-year rivalry mirrored their powerful land's struggle for statehood.
Tom Flaunce
Joseph "Doc" Frail is a doctor with a past he's trying to outrun. While in Montana, he comes across a mining camp with a hanging tree and rescues a man named Rune from the noose. With Rune as his servant, Frail decides to settle down, and he takes over as town doctor. He meets Elizabeth, who is suffering from shock, and the two soon fall in love. But when Elizabeth is attacked, Frail's attempt to help her lands them both in trouble.
Stricker
When hired killer John Gant rides into Lordsburg, the town's folk become paranoid as each leading citizen has enemies capable of using the services of a professional killer for personal revenge.
Hal - the Cameraman (uncredited)
The film presents how the human body recognizes and becomes aware of its surroundings. The various information pathways to the brain such as sight, sound, smell, taste and touch are explored in a accurate but simple manner via human impression and cartoon characters!
The Colonel
Toward the end of World War II, two American soldiers fighting in Southern France become romantically involved with a young, American woman. Her background will reveal more about them than her.
Mr. Badek
The moving story of four young men struggling against overwhelming odds to remain honest. When their crooked employer shorts their earnings; they turn to crime, their first theft ending in tragedy.
Humpty Dumpty
A young girl named Alice falls down a rabbit-hole and finds herself in Wonderland, a fantasy land of strange characters and ideas.
Machine-Gunner (uncredited)
"Docudrama" about the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 and its results, the recovering of the ships, the improving of defense in Hawaii and the US efforts to beat back the Japanese reinforcements.
Protester at Communist Meeting
Domestic drama about an elderly woman and her four squabbling adult children.
