Ralph Bellamy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Ralph Bellamy
Image:Ralph Bellamy in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble 3.jpg
in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976)
Birth name Ralph Rexford Bellamy
Born June 17 1904(1904-06-17)
Chicago, Illinois
Died November 29 1991 (aged 87)
Santa Monica, California
Spouse(s) Alice Delbridge (1927-1930)
Catherine Willard (1931-1945)
Ethel Smith (1945-1947)
Alice Murphy (1949-1991)

Ralph Rexford Bellamy (June 17, 1904 – November 29, 1991) was a Tony Award-winning American actor with a career spanning 62 years.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Bellamy was born in Chicago, Illinois to Lilla Louise Smith, a native of Canada, and Charles Rexford Bellamy.[1] He began his acting career on stage, and by 1927 owned his own theatre company. In 1931 he made his film debut and worked constantly throughout the decade, establishing himself as a capable supporting actor. Bellamy received the lead role in the 1936 film Straight from the Shoulder.

[edit] Film career

He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Awful Truth (1937) opposite Irene Dunne and Cary Grant and played a similar part (the naive, aw-shucks boyfriend competing with the sophisticated light-comedy Grant character) in His Girl Friday (1940). He portrayed detective Ellery Queen in a few films during the 1940s, but as his film career had not progressed, he returned to the stage, where he continued to perform throughout the fifties. Highly regarded within the industry, he was a founder of the Screen Actors Guild and served as President of Actors' Equity from 1952 to 1964.

He was briefly married to organist Ethel Smith. From the Ethel Smith entry in Whatever Became Of ....? , Third Series by Richard Lamparski, (c)1970 Crown Publishers, Inc., NYC:

"In 1945 Ethel married Ralph Bellamy, who at the time was appearing on Broadway in State of the Union, and the couple lived in Ethel's Park Vendome apartment. In 1947 Bellamy walked out, stating that he had no intention of paying his wife alimony. Ethel charged abandonment and claimed that he drank heavily, that he was moody, and would lock himself in his room. The organist said her husband became jealous when at their parties she received most of the attention. Bellamy contended that she had advised him to be home 15 minutes after his final curtain or he would find the door locked."

Bellamy was also married to Alice Delbridge (1927-1930), Catherine Willard (1931-1945), and Alice Murphy (1949-1991).

Bellamy was a regular panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth during its initial run. He also starred on the TV detective series Follow that Man.

Image:FDR Campobello.jpg
On the movie set, Sunrise at Campobello (1960), with Eleanor Roosevelt and Greer Garson

On Broadway he appeared in one of his most famous roles, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello. He later starred in the 1960 film version.

On film, he also starred in Rosemary's Baby (1968) as a devilish physician, before turning to television during the 1970s. An Emmy Award nomination for the mini-series The Winds of War (1983) - in which Bellamy reprised his Sunrise at Campobello role of Franklin Roosevelt - brought him back into the limelight. This was quickly followed by his role as a Randolph Duke, a conniving billionaire alongside Don Ameche in Trading Places (1983).

In the 1988 Eddie Murphy film, Coming to America, Bellamy and co-star Don Ameche reprised a one-scene cameo of their roles as the Duke brothers. In Trading Places, Randolph and Mortimer Duke lost their enormous fortune in that film because of Murphy's character. In Coming to America, the brothers are now homeless and living on the streets. Akeem (Murphy) gives them a paper bag filled with money, which they gratefully accept and exclaim "We're Back!" (while failing to notice that the generous Prince Akeem bears an uncanny resemblance to Billy Ray Valentine (Murphy), the man who ruined them in Trading Places).

[edit] Final years

In 1984, he was presented with a Life Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild, and in 1987 received an Honorary Academy Award "for his unique artistry and his distinguished service to the profession of acting".

Among his later roles was a memorable appearance as a once-brilliant but increasingly forgetful lawyer sadly skewered by the Jimmy Smits character on an episode of L.A. Law.

He continued working regularly and gave his final performance in Pretty Woman (1990).

He died as a result of a lung ailment in Santa Monica, California at the age of 87, and was buried in Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.

[edit] Posthumous recognition

Bellamy has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6542 Hollywood Boulevard.

In a 2007 episode of Boston Legal, footage of a 1957 episode of Studio One was used. The episode featured Bellamy and William Shatner as a father-son duo of lawyers. This was used in the present-day to explain the relationship between's Shatner's Denny Crane character and his father in the show.

[edit] Selected filmography

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~battle/celeb/bellamy.htm

[edit] External links

es:Ralph Bellamy fr:Ralph Bellamy ja:ラルフ・ベラミー ru:Беллами, Ральф

Retrieved from "http://india.smashits.com/wikipedia/Ralph_Bellamy"
Views
Personal tools

Toolbox