Jeff Corey

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Jeff Corey
Corey in Only the Valiant (1951)
Born
Arthur Zwerling

(1914-08-10)August 10, 1914[1]
New York City, U.S.
DiedAugust 16, 2002(2002-08-16) (aged 88)
Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Occupations
  • Actor
  • acting teacher
Years active1938–2000
Spouse
Hope Corey
​
​
(m. 1938)​
Children3
Websitejeffcorey.com

Jeff Corey (born Arthur Zwerling;[2] August 10, 1914 – August 16, 2002)[1] was an American stage and screen actor who became a well-respected acting teacher after being blacklisted in the 1950s.[1]

Life and career[edit]

Corey attended New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn and was active in the school's Dramatic Society.[3] In the mid-1930s, he acted with the Clare Tree Major Children's Theater of New York.[4] When Corey began making films, his agent suggested that he change his name from Arthur Zwerling, and he did so.[5]

He worked with Jules Dassin, Elia Kazan, John Randolph, and other politically liberal theatrical personalities. Although he attended some meetings of the Communist Party, Corey never joined. A World War II veteran, Corey served in the United States Navy.[1] His memoir, Improvising Out Loud: My Life Teaching Hollywood How To Act, which he wrote with his daughter, Emily Corey, is published by the University Press of Kentucky. His longtime friend and former student Leonard Nimoy wrote the book's foreword.

Hollywood[edit]

Corey moved to Hollywood in 1940 and became a character actor. One of his film roles was in Superman and the Mole Men (1951), which was later edited to a two-part episode of the television series The Adventures of Superman, retitled "The Unknown People". His portrayal of a xenophobic vigilante coincidentally reflected what was about to happen to him. Prior to the show Corey appeared in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), as one of the men who discover the body of the vagrant Freddy Jolly.

Blacklisted[edit]

Corey's career was over in the early 1950s, when he was summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He refused to give names of alleged Communists and subversives in the entertainment industry[2] and went so far as to ridicule the panel by offering critiques of the testimony of the previous witnesses. That led to his being blacklisted for 12 years. "Most of us were retired Reds. We had left it, at least I had, years before," Corey told Patrick McGilligan, the co-author of Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist, who teaches film at Marquette University. "The only issue was, did you want to just give them their token names so you could continue your career, or not? I had no impulse to defend a political point of view that no longer interested me particularly... They just wanted two new names so they could hand out more subpoenas."

While blacklisted Corey drew upon his experience in various actors' workshops (including the Actors' Lab, which he helped establish[6]) by seeking work as an acting teacher. He soon became one of the most influential teachers in Hollywood. His students, at various times, included Robert Blake, Carol Burnett, James Coburn, Richard Chamberlain, James Dean, Jane Fonda, Peter Fonda, Michael Forest, James Hong, Luana Anders, Sally Kellerman, Shirley Knight, and Bruce Lee.[7]

Back to work in the 1960s[edit]

In 1962, Corey began working in films again, and remained active into the 1990s. He played Hoban in The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Tom Chaney, the principal villain in True Grit (1969), and Sheriff Bledsoe in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (also 1969), who says to the title characters, "I never met a soul more affable than you, Butch, or faster than the Kid, but you're still nothing but two-bit outlaws on the dodge. It's over, don't you get that? Your times is over and you're gonna die bloody, and all you can do is choose where."[8] In Seconds (1966), a science-fiction drama film directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Rock Hudson, Corey with Will Geer and John Randolph played wealthy executives who opt to restart their lives with new identities.

Corey played a police detective in the psychological thriller The Premonition (1976) and he reprised the role of Sheriff Bledsoe in the prequel Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979). He also played Wild Bill Hickok in Little Big Man (1970). Corey directed some of the screen tests for Superman (1978), which can be seen in the DVD extras, and played Lex Luthor in several try-outs.

Television[edit]

Corey made guest appearances on many television series. He appeared as murder victim Carl Bascom in the Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Reckless Rockhound" (1964). He was featured on science-fiction series, too, including an episode of The Outer Limits ("O.B.I.T.", 1963) in which he played Byron Lomax; Star Trek ("The Cloud Minders", 1969) in which he played High Advisor Plasus;[9] as Caspay in Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), and Babylon 5 ("Z'ha'dum", 1996) in which he played Justin.

Corey played Dr. Miles Talmadge on Rod Serling's Night Gallery season-one episode one, "The Dead Man", on December 16, 1970. He discussed his television work on Night Gallery in an interview in February 1973 aboard the SS Universe Campus of Chapman College.[citation needed] He was proudest of this work, for which he received an Emmy nomination.[citation needed]

During the 1970s, Corey also played Dr. Scott Rivers, an older man with whom Carol Kester (the character played by Marcia Wallace) becomes romantically involved, in 1973 in "Old Man Rivers," episode 31 of the Bob Newhart Show.[10] In 1974, he appeared in "Murder on the 13th Floor," episode 6 of the James Stewart legal drama Hawkins.[11] He also appeared in the short-lived 1974 series Paper Moon, a comedy about a father and his presumed daughter roaming through the American Midwest during the Great Depression based on the 1973 film of the same name.

In the 1980s, Corey was in a 1984 episode of Bob Newhart's show Newhart playing a judge.[12] He played a man who believed he was Santa Claus in a 1984 episode of Night Court.[13] He also had a role in a third-season episode of Night Court in 1986 as a burned-out judge who had lost his grip on reality.[14] Corey was the voice of the villain Silvermane (in elderly form) in Spider-Man: The Animated Series in 1994.

Radio[edit]

In the era of old-time radio, Corey portrayed Detective Lieutenant Ybarra on the crime drama The Adventures of Philip Marlowe on NBC (1947) and CBS (1948–1951).[15]

Personal life and death[edit]

Corey and his wife Hope had been married for 64 years at the time of his death at the age of 88 on August 16, 2002.[16]

Filmography[edit]

Film[edit]

Television[edit]

Other credits[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Martin, Douglas (August 20, 2002). "Jeff Corey, Character Actor And Acting Instructor, 88". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 9, 2014. Retrieved May 8, 2015. Jeff Corey, a character actor who was barred from his field in the 1950s because of past association with the Communist Party and then became a prominent Hollywood acting instructor, died on Friday in Los Angeles.
  2. ^ a b Kibbey, Richard D. (2011). Pat Boone: The Hollywood Years. Tate Publishing. p. 301. ISBN 978-1-61346-134-1. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
  3. ^ "New Utrecht High Cast To Give Play in January". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. New York, Brooklyn. December 18, 1931. p. 54. Retrieved July 29, 2018 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  4. ^ "Good Players in Robin Hood". The News-Messenger. Ohio, Fremont. December 9, 1935. p. 3. Retrieved July 29, 2018 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  5. ^ "Another Brooklyn Boy Crashes Gates To Movie Success". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. New York, Brooklyn. September 21, 1947. p. 9. Retrieved July 30, 2018 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  6. ^ Gordon, Mel (October 23, 2009). Stanislavsky in America: An Actor's Workbook. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-25293-9. Retrieved September 10, 2014.
  7. ^ "Acting Like Bruce Lee". January 4, 2017. Archived from the original on April 10, 2019. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  8. ^ "Quotes from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"". IMDb. Retrieved February 2, 2023.
  9. ^ The Star Trek Encyclopedia by Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda, Pocket Books, 1999 edition, p. 378
  10. ^ Nick at Nite's Classic TV Companion, edited by Tom Hill, © 1996 by Viacom International, p. 59
  11. ^ The Classic TV Archive Hawkins Accessed 22 October 2022
  12. ^ "Jeff Corey".
  13. ^ Christmas on Television by Diane Werts, Page 78
  14. ^ "Jeff Corey, 88". Chicago Tribune. August 21, 2002.
  15. ^ Terrace, Vincent (1999). Radio Programs, 1924–1984: A Catalog of More Than 1800 Shows. McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 13–15. ISBN 978-0-7864-4513-4.
  16. ^ Martin, Douglas (August 20, 2002). "Jeff Corey, Character Actor and Acting Instructor, 88". The New York Times.
  17. ^ ""Roseanne" Death and Stuff (TV Episode 1989) - IMDb". IMDb.

General sources[edit]

External links[edit]

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