Ed Nelson
Birth : 1928-12-21, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Death : 2014-08-09
History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Edwin Stafford Nelson (born December 21, 1928) is an American actor.
Nelson has appeared in numerous television shows, more than fifty motion pictures, and hundreds of stage productions. Until 2005, he was teaching acting and screenwriting in his native New Orleans at two local universities there. Hurricane Katrina prompted him to move his family to Sterlington near Monroe in Ouachita Parish in northeastern Louisiana.
Nelson began acting while attending Tulane University in New Orleans. He left college after two years to study at the New York School of Radio and Television Technique. After graduating, he took a position as a director at WDSU-TV in New Orleans. By 1956, acting became his central focus and he moved to the Los Angeles area. Early in his career he worked with famed B-movie producer Roger Corman on such Corman films as Cry Baby Killers, A Bucket of Blood, Teenage Cave Man and Attack of the Crab Monsters. In 1958 he participated in Bruno VeSota's science fiction horror film The Brain Eaters.
His early television career featured many guest starring roles in such series as The Fugitive, Gunsmoke, Harbor Command, Tombstone Territory, Tightrope, The Blue Angels (as arrogant flight instructor Lieutenant Dayl Martin), Laramie, COronado 9, The Eleventh Hour, Bonanza, Thriller (US TV series), and Channing, an ABC drama about college life.
In 1964 he won his most famous role portraying Dr. Michael Rossi on the ABC drama Peyton Place, which ran from 1964 to 1969. Nelson's fellow cast members included Mia Farrow, Ryan O'Neal, and Dorothy Malone. Dr. Rossi proved to be so popular that by 1968, he became the lead actor on the show. Nelson reprised his role in two made-for-TV movies, Murder in Peyton Place and Peyton Place: The Next Generation.
After Peyton Place ended, Nelson worked in many more productions of all varieties, including starring role in many movies of the week, a second TV series, "The Silent Force," and a popular morning talk show which he hosted for three years.
Soon after, Nelson struck gold with his critically acclaimed portrayal of elusive pit crew chief Robert Denby in the hit film Riding with Death (1976), earning him several prestigious accolades and legions of devoted fans.
He portrayed a dangerous impostor in the adventure movie For the Love of Benji (1977).
During the 1980s, Nelson took on the role of Senator Mark Denning in the daytime soap Capitol.
Nelson also spent a couple of years as Harry Truman onstage replacing James Whitmore for the National Tour of "Give 'Em Hell, Harry."
While living in Los Angeles, Nelson was an active member of the Screen Actors Guild and was elected to the union board for many years. Nelson is a long-standing member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and continues a long tradition of participation in voting for the Academy Awards.
In 1999, Nelson returned to Tulane University to finish credits toward his undergraduate degree, which he completed the following year at the age of seventy-one. Nelson continues to act as the opportunity arises. He and his wife of fifty-eight years, Patsy, enjoy semi-retirement visiting his six children and fourteen grandchildren.
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George Dressler
A juror on the inside and a woman on the outside manipulate a court trial involving a major gun manufacturer.
General Sharman
A group of covert CIA operatives trailing a potential new energy source are double-crossed by corrupt agent Morgan, who causes a helicopter crash in remote South Africa. The sole survivor, suffering severe amnesia, is nursed to recovery by a kindly native tribe who call him "Whoami" after the question he keeps asking. With the help of a mysterious reporter Christine, Whoami pieces together his past and tracks the turncoat agent and his criminal cohorts.
Dr. August Claiborne
In the wake of Hurricane Camille, the infamous '60's storm that crippled the Gulf Coast, a mysterious teenage girl washes up to shore, and the secrets of Mississippi's Sister Island crawl to the surface. Dorrie (Kathleen York), a young doctor living with her mother (Karen Black), assumes custody of the unknown girl (Erin Buchanan) and names her Camille. Terrified and unable to speak, Camille spends her days hiding underneath the dining room table. But when Dorrie unearths a series of curious circumstances surrounding Camille's past, a shocking mystery comes unraveled.
Jersey Callum
Children turned into zombies wreak havoc in a coroner's building with just a burned-out psychic, an experienced cop and two coroners to stop the madness.
General Stone
An expermintal gun powered by an atomic reactor is misplaced when the transport carrying it crashes into a river. The weapon soon falls into the hands of a bullied teen named Zeke, who uses it to get even with his persecutors. An army team led by the overzealous Lt. Dalton is sent to recover the weapon before it's unstable reactor overloads and causes a meltdown.
Victor Handler
A lawyer who is defending an accused murderer, is told by his client the whereabouts of the bodies. However, being his lawyer, he is unable to reveal this information.
Governor Neilson
When police funding is cut, the Governor announces he must close one of the academies. To make it fair, the two police academies must compete against each other to stay in operation. Mauser persuades two officers in Lassard's academy to better his odds, but things don't quite turn out as expected...
Dr. Michael Rossi
Another attempt to bring the 1960s primetime serial back to network television
George Dobbs
An unmarried career woman decides she wants a baby and finds a suitable partner, a sportswriter working for the magazine she publishes. After she maneuvers him into proposing marriage to her, she learns that he happens to be sterile.
Carl Strickland
A social worker tries to break up a ring of crooks who buy newborn babies from teenaged mothers and sell them to couples who can't obtain them through legal adoption channels.
President Harry S. Truman
The story of Col. Paul Tibbets and his crew who flew the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, bringing World War II to a close.
Mike Danvers
Private detective Frank Cannon comes out of retirement to investigate an old friend and Army Intelligence colleague's death, which has been ruled a suicide, but which smells like murder.
Joseph Locordolos
After inheriting a magical gold watch from his multimillionaire uncle's estate, Robert Hays and his girlfriend, Pam Dawber, soon discover not only that he can stop time with the watch, but also that it holds the secret to his late uncle's fortune -- a secret that others fall over themselves trying to steal.
Mark Kane
The story of a divorced woman who begins an affair with the college-age son of her best friend, and the effects it has on her relationship with her own son, who is not much younger than her lover.
Philip Mulwray
True story recounting the crash of Eastern Airlines flight 401, which crashed in the Everglades while on approach to Miami in December 1972. Accurate in many respects, the movie goes through the events leading up to the crash, the crash itself, and the rescue effort afterwards.
Mr. Clarkson
A happy-go-lucky veterinary student, paralyzed for life in a college polo meet, finds love with a young woman who leaves her fiancée to help him overcome his handicap.
Dr. Mike Wise
Two heart surgeons clash over personal issues and medical ethics in a big-city hospital.
George Beldridge
It's the biggest event of the year — the Super Bowl! But the star players for the Cougars, gathered in New Orleans for the big game, are preoccupied with some serious off-the-field issues. Dave Walecki's marriage to his wife Nancy is falling apart, while Jim McCauley is involved in a shady deal with a management firm that could destroy his career. But that's nothing compared to the real drama. There's an assassin killing off many of the team's personnel (as well as their chances of winning)!
Dr. Michael Rossi
A former resident of the town of Peyton Place, now wealthy and powerful, secretly returns to the town and sets in motion a spate of killings designed as revenge for past wrongs.
Chandler Dietrich
Benji gets lost after a flight overseas and becomes a stray in Athens, Greece. He then tries everyday to reunite with his family while mysterious people pursue him, in a race to get a code which was secretly tattooed on his paw at the airport. But who are the bad guys and who are the agents that can be trusted? Will Benji and his kids and their nanny ever get to enjoy their vacation?
Admiral Harry Pearson
This war drama depicts the U.S. and Japanese forces in the naval Battle of Midway, which became a turning point for Americans during World War II.
Ray Hollister
In this rollicking adventure set on the high seas, an innocent insurance agent working on the beautiful Hawaiian island of Kauai, is framed as a drug smuggler. He gets help from a most unlikely source - the town drunk who knows more than anyone suspects.
Dimwitted, meaty guy foils criminals by turning invisible.
Carlton James
Record executives want a highly-regarded record producer to focus on a white pop act whom they feel has the sound America wants. To keep his creative integrity, Buckmaster carefully begins to fight the system that has made him the respected producer he has become.
An emotionally disturbed teenager whose father is a research scientist takes a rat from his father's laboratory that is infected with an incurable virus that can kill 100 million people in three weeks.
Major John Alexander
When an in-flight collision incapacitates the pilots of an airplane bound for Los Angeles, stewardess Nancy Pryor is forced to take over the controls. From the ground, her boyfriend Alan Murdock, a retired test pilot, tries to talk her through piloting and landing the 747 aircraft. Worse yet, the anxious passengers — among which are a noisy nun and a cranky man — are aggravating the already tense atmosphere.
Lt. Calvin Zenger
A police lieutenant’s routine Sunday afternoon is interrupted by the deaths of a hoodlum and a socialite.
Gene Kranz, Flight Director
NASA must devise a strategy to return Apollo 13 to Earth safely after the spacecraft undergoes massive internal damage putting the lives of the three astronauts on board in jeopardy.
Paul Reston
A woman kills her lover's wife, then sets out to frame her husband for the murder.
Nick Staffo
A group of skiers are trapped inside a runaway train hurtling down a mountainside.
Warren Cole
A conflicted teen lashes out by vandalizing equipment at the nuclear plant where his father works, then hits the road and finds a spiritual path.
Carl Nesbitt
A wealthy former mental patient goes home to her estate to rest and recuperate. While walking the grounds one day she hears the screams of a woman coming from underneath the ground. Her family, however, refuses to believe her story, and sees the incident as an opportunity to prove the woman's mind has snapped so they can take control of her money.
A student is held up in the library while a riot rages outside. As SDS protesters head to burn the library down, he has to fend them off with his baseball bat. This film opens with actual footage of civil disturbances in the 1960s, and moves on to images of historical American figures.
Paul Hamilton
A hostile youngster who will stop at nothing to break up his mother's marriage is suspected of homicide, and his stepfather fears that he may be the boy's next victim.
Dr. Martin Becker
Dr. Janet Furie comes to believe that her husband and fellow scientist were set up to die in a lab accident. She blames another scientist, not only for the murder but also for taking credit for her husband's groundbreaking work. When she can't prove her husband was murdered, she spins a web of intrigue and deceit that results in the suspected scientist being framed for another murder that never actually happened.
Cole Marteen
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.
James Priest
Maxwell Slaughter is a kind, heavyset guy who has reached the rank of master sergeant in the army. Admired by handsome young Sgt. Eustis Clay, Slaughter forms a close bond with his peer. Clay hopes to convince Slaughter to join him in a business venture outside of the service, but, in the meantime, he introduces the older officer to the beautiful young Bobby Jo Pepperdine, inadvertently creating trouble for both men.
Captain at Nightclub Announcing Call-up of Officers (uncredited)
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.
Nick Richards / Pete Jensen
An old man sells his soul to the devil, and turns into a young man. He then uses witchcraft and black magic to win a woman from his rival.
An ex-mafioso moves to Mexico to become a writer, revealing mob secrets in his books which are met with understandable displeasure. He is soon pursued by hit-men as well as the FBI, who need his testimony in a court case.
Dino Michaelis
Wayne, Jan, and Dino try pulling off a heist of a lumber company's payroll, and everything seems to go wrong right from the beginning, in spite of Dino's expertise. The trio take off for the woods in Canada with Wayne suffering from a wound and the law in hot pursuit. To complicate matters slightly there is a romantic tie-up with Jan, someone too tough and efficient to be easily won over.
Art Lacroix
Nerdy Walter Paisley (Dick Miller), a maladroit busboy at a beatnik café who doesn't fit in with the cool scene around him, attempts to woo his beautiful co-worker, Carla (Barboura Morris), by making a bust of her. When his klutziness results in the death of his landlady's cat, he panics and hides its body under a layer of plaster. But when Carla and her friends enthuse over the resulting artwork, Walter decides to create some bigger and more elaborate pieces using the same artistic process.
Alex Hendricks
A high school boy, out to find his father's killer, joins up with a gang of juvenile delinquents.
Norm Britt
Two high-school teenagers on their way to Mexico to get married cross paths with a homicidal fugitive.
Producer
A huge, alien structure resembling an inverted cone, appears in the woods outside a small rural town. Sent from Washington to investigate the origin of the mysterious object, a team of investigators discovers that intelligent parasites from inside the "cone" can attach themselves to humans' nervous systems and control their minds, taking control of the authorities and workers, making communication with the outside world impossible, and leaving the responsibility of stopping the invasion up to seven people who have thus far been able to avoid possession by these creatures from parts unknown.
Dr. Paul Kettering
A huge, alien structure resembling an inverted cone, appears in the woods outside a small rural town. Sent from Washington to investigate the origin of the mysterious object, a team of investigators discovers that intelligent parasites from inside the "cone" can attach themselves to humans' nervous systems and control their minds, taking control of the authorities and workers, making communication with the outside world impossible, and leaving the responsibility of stopping the invasion up to seven people who have thus far been able to avoid possession by these creatures from parts unknown.
Rick Connor
A teenage boy panics and takes hostages when he thinks he's committed murder.
Guard (uncredited)
Two brothers, one wanted for murder, are shipwrecked on an island inhabited by nubile young women who have amassed a valuable cache of pearls.
Dave Randall
An astronaut is killed on re-entry to Earth, but his body is seeded with rapidly-gestating aliens.
Blonde Tribe Member
Roger Corman's post-holocaust quickie about an adolescent tribesman who dares to explore the feared "forbidden zone."
Police Officer 'Dutch' / Blind Man
The Black Widows, a teenage girl gang, find one of their number killed; they suspect Barbara, sometime girlfriend of the leader of rival gang The Vandals. As the gangs prepare for a rumble, we glimpse the members' home lives, exaggerating every type of family dysfunction; but that of their "average American" quarry is no better. Full of shadowy urban night scenes.
Cannon
An ocean-side nightclub owner loves a singer who only has eyes for a gambler.
Etienne (as Edwin Nelson)
A community of Cajun fishermen living around a remote bayou includes one authentic beauty, Marie, who wants to better herself but must deal with the unwelcome attentions of storekeeper Ulysses. When she meets Martin Davis, visiting New York architect, they hit it off at once; but the sinister Ulysses is not inclined to suffer a Yankee rival.
Tom
A teenage couple making out in the woods accidentally runs over an alien creature with their car. The creature's hand falls off, but it comes alive, and, with an eye growing out of it, begins to stalk the teens. Meanwhile, Joe the town drunk wants to store the body in his refrigerator, but some of the alien's buddies inject alcohol into his system, and Joe dies of an overdose.
Pete
Cloud Nine, the local teen hangout, has been taken over by a pair of escaped killers, who hold the local teens hostage. The bartender realizes it's up to him to save the kids.
Special Effects
A group of scientists travel to a remote island to study the effects of nuclear weapons tests, only to get stranded when their airplane mysteriously explodes. The team soon discovers that the tests have given rise to crabs mutated into intelligent, impervious, telepathic giants intent on increasing their numbers by breeding, then travelling to populated areas to feed, and which do not intend to be stopped by their discoverers.
Ensign Quinlan
A group of scientists travel to a remote island to study the effects of nuclear weapons tests, only to get stranded when their airplane mysteriously explodes. The team soon discovers that the tests have given rise to crabs mutated into intelligent, impervious, telepathic giants intent on increasing their numbers by breeding, then travelling to populated areas to feed, and which do not intend to be stopped by their discoverers.
Police Sergeant
An undercover policewoman helps three female convicts escape from prison so that they can lead her to a stash of stolen diamonds hidden in a swamp.
Charlie
William Castle directed this Sam Katzman production, a gritty crime thriller about a newly-discharged sailor who gets a job as a longshoreman in The Big Easy. He swiftly discovers mob corruption throughout the docks, and when a friend is killed by the gangsters, he convinces the police to let him go undercover and take matters into his own hands. Filmed on location on the docks and in the French Quarter.
