Bert Freed's Main TV Roles Show Character(s) Salvage 1 Sam Bishop Shane Rufe Ryker

Main Movie Roles 1978 - Barracuda 1971 - Billy Jack 1970 - There Was a Crooked Man... 1968 - Wild in the Streets 1968 - Madigan 1968 - Hang 'em High 1966 - Nevada Smith 1962 - What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1959 - Gazebo 1958 - The Goddess 1957 - Paths of Glory 1955 - The Desperate Hours 1953 - Invaders from Mars 1952 - The Snows of Kilimanjaro 1951 - Detective Story 1950 - Where the Sidewalk Ends 1950 - No Way Out 1950 - 711 Ocean Drive 1947 - Boomerang!

BIOGRAPHY:

During the '50s and '60s it seemed like every time you turned around, there was Bert Freed as a detective, gangster, sheriff or greedy small-town businessman, and sci-fi fans will remember him as the police chief taken over by the Martians in the classic Invaders from Mars (1953). He played a lot of tough cops--sometimes crooked ones, sometimes racist ones, sometimes violent ones, sometimes a combination of all three--and a lot of tough soldiers, but he could also play a jovial family patriarch when called upon. Born and raised in New York, Freed began acting while attending Penn State University, and made his Broadway debut in 1942. His film debut occurred, oddly enough, in a musical--Carnegie Hall (1947)--and he went on to play everything from a gangster in a Ma and Pa Kettle movie (Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town (1950) to a French army sergeant--a first-rate job, too--in the classic Paths of Glory (1957). He appeared in it seems like every cop and detective series on TV at one time or another. He retired from acting in 1981, and died of a heart attack in Canada in 1994 while on a fishing trip with his son.


TRIVIA:

• First actor to play the role of Lt. Columbo, in a 1960 episode of _"The Chevy Mystery Show" (1960)_ (qv), eight years before 'Peter Falk (I)' (qv) became famous in the part.