Super Humans - Ernest Truex

Ernest Truex (September 19, 1889 – June 26, 1973) was an American actor of stage, film, and television. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Truex started acting at age five and toured through Missouri at age nine as "The Child Wonder in Scenes from Shakespeare". His Broadway debut came in 1908, and he performed in several David Belasco plays and portrayed the title role in the 1915 musical Very Good Eddie. In 1927, he created the role of Bill Paradene in Good Morning, Bill, adapted by P. G. Wodehouse based on a play by Ladislaus Fodor. He made his film debut in 1913, but did not work in film full-time for another twenty years. He tended to play "milquetoast" characters and in The Warrior's Husband he played a "nance". In the 1938 The Adventures of Marco Polo, he played Marco Polo's comical assistant, opposite Gary Cooper. Early in television, Truex guest starred on CBS's Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town. In 1949, Truex played Caspar Milquetoast on the DuMont Television Network's Program Playhouse Series. From 1953 to 1954, he co-starred with a young Brandon deWilde in Jamie on ABC. He played aging Grandpa McHummer striking a bond with young Jamie, his recently orphaned grandson. In later life, he became known for playing elderly men on television in works such as Justice, Mister Peepers, Hazel, and Father Knows Best. He had the main role in the "Kick the Can" episode of Rod Serling's original The Twilight Zone (with his son Barry). In another Twilight Zone episode, "What You Need", he played a traveling peddler who just happened to have exactly what people needed just before they knew they needed it. He starred in the first season (1958 – 1959) of CBS's The Ann Sothern Show as Jason Macauley, the manager of the swank Bartley House hotel in New York City. Reta Shaw played his domineering wife, Flora. In 1960, Truex appeared with Harpo Marx in the episode "Silent Panic" of CBS's anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson. He guest starred on the CBS sitcom, Dennis the Menace, with Jay North as the series lead.