Brett King

Brett King (born Bertell King; December 29, 1920 in Ocean Beach, New York – January 14, 1999 in Palm Beach, Florida) was from 1949 to 1967 an American actor of film and television, including westerns.^[1]

King appeared in a supporting role in eleven episodes in the syndicated 1958-1959 television series, Mackenzie's Raiders, with Richard Carlson as the historical Colonel Ranald Mackenzie, set at the former Fort Clark near Brackettville in southwestern Texas. Other "raiders" cast in the series were Morris Ankrum, Jack Ging, and Louis Jean Heydt.^[2][3]

Background

King was himself a United States Army Air Corps fighter pilot in World War II and was awarded the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross.^[4]

King's first acting role was as Lieutenant Teiss in the 1949 World War II film Battleground, starring Van Johnson, John Hodiak, Ricardo Montalban, and future U.S. Senator George Murphy.^[1] The next year he played Al 'Kid' Beaumont in State Penitentiary, a drama starring Warner Baxter as a former aircraft manufacturer wrongfully accused of embezzlement of $400,000 and given a long prison sentence.^[5] In 1951, he was cast as First Lieutenant Ernie Stark in the John Wayne and Robert Ryan film, Flying Leathernecks, which focuses on the 1942 Battle of Guadalcanal.^[6] That same year he played Milo Pagano in the war film A Yank in Korea, starring Lon McCallister.^[7]

In 1954, he played the part of Joe Branch, reputed son of Jesse James in the film, Jesse James vs. the Daltons. William Tannen was cast as Emmett Dalton and James Griffith as Bob Dalton.^[8]

Television career

King appeared in five episodes of Wagon Train between 1961 and 1963 and four times each on CBS's Gunsmoke and Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, including the role of Dolf Akins in the 1958 episode "Let the Man Die". He also appeared four times on NBC's Bat Masterson western series and Dragnet crime drama. He appeared twice on The Roy Rogers Show, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Tombstone Territory and Johnny Ringo and once on The Adventures of Kit Carson, Shotgun Slade, Black Saddle, Law of the Plainsman, Lawman, Laramie, The Virginian, and Yancy Derringer, in the latter as the bandit Jesse James in the episode "Outlaw at Liberty". He had also appeared in the 1954 film, Jesse James vs. the Daltons in the role of Joe Branch.^[1]

In 1954, King was cast as Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood in the episode "Geronimo" of the syndicated Stories of the Century, starring and narrated by Jim Davis. In 1960, King played Cassidy in "The Devil's Due" of another western anthology series, Death Valley Days.^[1]

Other roles were on Alcoa Premiere, Whirlybirds, Rescue 8, Tightrope, Men into Space (as Major Tim O'Leary in "Mystery Satellite"), Lock-Up, Rescue 8, Harbor Command, Highway Patrol, and The Public Defender.^[1]

King's last appearances were as Major Jackson on ABC's The Green Hornet, in the two-part 1967 series finale entitled "Invasion from Outer Space."^[1]

Later years

In the middle 1960s, King and his wife, Sharon, developed the Coral Sands Hotel in Harbour Island, the Bahamas. He died of leukemia early in 1999 and was survived by his wife of thirty-nine years and three daughters.

References