Frank Wilcox's Main TV Roles Show Character(s) The Beverly Hillbillies John Brewster The Untouchables (1959) Beecher Asb… Mona McCluskey Gen. Somers General Som… The People's Choice Mr. Gibson

Main Movie Roles 1971 - The Million Dollar Duck 1960 - Please Don't Eat the Daisies 1959 - Go, Johnny, Go! 1959 - North by Northwest 1959 - The Jayhawkers! 1956 - 7th Cavalry 1956 - Dance With Me, Henry 1956 - Hollywood or Bust 1956 - Earth vs. the Flying Saucers 1956 - The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit 1956 - The Ten Commandments 1955 - Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops 1954 - Naked Alibi 1954 - A Star Is Born 1953 - The Man From The Alamo 1953 - Code Two 1953 - Invaders from Mars 1953 - Pony Express 1952 - Deadline - U.S.A. 1952 - Scaramouche 1952 - Carrie 1952 - The Greatest Show On Earth 1951 - Go For Broke! 1951 - Show Boat 1951 - As Young as You Feel 1950 - Bunco Squad 1950 - Annie Get Your Gun 1950 - Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye 1950 - Blondie's Hero 1950 - Three Secrets 1949 - The Fountainhead 1949 - All The King's Men 1949 - The Clay Pigeon 1949 - House Of Strangers 1949 - Malaya 1948 - The Miracle of the Bells 1948 - The Babe Ruth Story 1947 - Out of the Past 1947 - Blondie's Anniversary 1947 - The Arnelo Affair 1947 - Gentleman's Agreement 1947 - Dead Reckoning 1946 - Strange Triangle 1946 - Cloak and Dagger 1946 - Without Reservations 1946 - Night Editor 1946 - Notorious 1945 - Conflict 1944 - The Sullivans 1944 - Follow the Boys 1943 - The North Star 1942 - Lady Gangster 1942 - Across the Pacific 1942 - Captains of the Clouds 1941 - Sergeant York 1940 - They Drive by Night 1940 - Virginia City 1940 - The Sea Hawk 1940 - City for Conquest 1940 - Santa Fe Trail 1939 - The Roaring Twenties

BIOGRAPHY:

American character actor in scores of films after substantial stage experience. He was born in DeSoto, Missouri, but raised in Atchison, Kansas. The son of a railroad worker and law clerk (some publicity material states the father was a physician, but family and census records show otherwise), he wavered between various careers including oil exploration, but found his way after an introduction to the stage with the Atchison Civic Theatre and Kansas City Civic Theatre. He briefly attended the University of Kansas (where he was a fraternity brother of future newsman John Cameron Swayze). He moved from Kansas to California in 1930, where he lived with his grandparents and worked in the lemon groves near Pomona prior to opening a tire-repair shop in that city. He also helped found a theatre company in Pomona. He joined the Pasadena Community Playhouse, where he was spotted by a Warner Bros. talent scout looking for someone with a resemblance to Henry Clay, for the Warners short film The Monroe Doctrine (1939). He signed with Warners as a contract player and was thereafter virtually never without work. He played in an enormous number of films over the next three decades, mostly in small supporting roles. He was equally adept at playing businessmen, attorneys, or historical figures, and was a familiar face on screen and on television for his entire career, though most people would have been unable to identify him by name. Perhaps his greatest fame came in the TV role of oil company president John Brewster on "The Beverly Hillbillies" (1962). During the last years of his life, he was co-owner of a popular restaurant/bar in Encino, California, called The Oak Room. Wilcox died in 1974.


TRIVIA:

• Studied at the Pasadena Community Playhouse alongside 'George Reeves (I)' (qv), who was among his closest friends. He was best man at Reeves's wedding and they appeared in eleven films together.
• In the final release print of 1951's _Show Boat (1951)_ (qv), Wilcox, as a poker player, had no lines -- unusual for a familiar supporting actor who usually had a speaking part. But his role may have been a little more substantial in the rough cut, because the scenes of Gaylord Ravenal and Magnolia's "winning streak" in Chicago were trimmed some after it was decided that they slowed down the film.
• Served on the Screen Actors Guild Board of Directors.
• Honorary mayor of Granada Hills, California during the 1960s.