John Archer was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 movie and television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

.

Biography

Born Ralph Bowman in Osceola, Nebraska

Osceola, Nebraska

-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 921 people, 381 households, and 235 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,036.8 people per square mile . There were 417 housing units at an average density of 469.4 per square mile . The racial makeup of the city was 99.57%...

, Archer moved to California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 at the age of five. He attended Hollywood High School

Hollywood High School

Hollywood High School is a Los Angeles Unified School District high school located at the intersection of North Highland Avenue and West Sunset Boulevard in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California.-History:...

 and the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

, where he studied cinematography

Cinematography

Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...

 with an eye on a job behind the camera.

When finding work in the field proved difficult, he drifted into acting, working as a radio announcer and actor (including one year in the starring role of Lamont Cranston in "The Shadow

The Shadow

The Shadow is a collection of serialized dramas, originally in pulp magazines, then on 1930s radio and then in a wide variety of media, that follow the exploits of the title character, a crime-fighting vigilante in the pulps, which carried over to the airwaves as a "wealthy, young man about town"...

") appearing on Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 in The Day Before Spring

The Day Before Spring

The Day Before Spring is a musical with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe.-Productions:The 1945 touring production closed in Chicago after three days due to a crippling coal strike...

, and in film in a number of movie serials for Universal

Universal Pictures

-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...

 and Republic

Republic Pictures

Republic Pictures was an independent film production-distribution corporation with studio facilities, operating from 1934 through 1959, and was best known for specializing in westerns, movie serials and B films emphasizing mystery and action....

 under his birth name. In a radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

 contest

Competition

Competition is a contest between individuals, groups, animals, etc. for territory, a niche, or a location of resources. It arises whenever two and only two strive for a goal which cannot be shared. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. For...

 sponsored by Jesse L. Lasky

Jesse L. Lasky

Jesse Louis Lasky, Sr. was a pioneer Hollywood film producer. He was a key founder of Paramount Pictures with Adolph Zukor, and father of screenwriter Jesse L...

, he won the top prize, an RKO contract in the name of "John Archer." His screen credits include Hello, Frisco, Hello

Hello, Frisco, Hello

Hello, Frisco, Hello is a film starring Alice Faye, John Payne, Lynn Bari, and Jack Oakie. The film was made in Technicolor and released by 20th Century-Fox. This was one of the last musicals made by Faye for Fox, and in later interviews Faye said it was clear Fox was promoting Betty Grable as her...

, Guadalcanal Diary

Guadalcanal Diary (film)

Guadalcanal Diary is a 1943 World War II war film starring Preston Foster, Lloyd Nolan, William Bendix, Richard Conte, Anthony Quinn and the film debut of Richard Jaeckel...

, White Heat

White Heat

White Heat may refer to:In film:* White Heat , a British film directed by Thomas Bentley* White Heat , an American film* White Heat, a 1949 film starring James CagneyIn music:...

, Destination Moon

Destination Moon (film)

Destination Moon is an American science fiction feature film produced by George Pal, who later produced When Worlds Collide, The War of the Worlds, and The Time Machine. Pal commissioned the script by James O'Hanlon and Rip Van Ronkel...

, Rock Around the Clock

Rock Around the Clock

"Rock Around the Clock" is a 12-bar-blues-based song written by Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers in 1952. The best-known and most successful rendition was recorded by Bill Haley and His Comets in 1954...

, Ten Thousand Bedrooms

Ten Thousand Bedrooms

Ten Thousand Bedrooms was Dean Martin's first movie in the wake of the dissolution of his partnership with Jerry Lewis in the team of Martin and Lewis....

, and Blue Hawaii

Blue Hawaii

Blue Hawaii is a 1961 musical film set in the state of Hawaii and starring Elvis Presley. The screenplay by Hal Kanter was nominated by the Writers Guild of America in 1962 in the category of Best Written American Musical. The movie opened at no...

. In 1971, he was featured in Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures

-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...

's movie How to Frame a Figg

How to Frame a Figg

How to Frame a Figg is a 1971 Universal comedy about a bungling bookkeeper's assistant, Hollis Alexander Figg in the Dalton city hall, who finds himself framed for embezzlement...

starring Don Knotts

Don Knotts

Jesse Donald "Don" Knotts was an American comedic actor best known for his portrayal of Barney Fife on the 1960s television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show, a role which earned him five Emmy Awards...

.

Archer appeared in dozens of television series, including Armstrong Circle Theatre

Armstrong Circle Theatre

Armstrong Circle Theatre is an American anthology drama television series which ran from 1950 to 1957 on NBC, and then until 1963 on CBS. It alternated weekly with The U.S. Steel Hour.-Synopsis:...

, The Millionaire, The Loretta Young

Loretta Young

Loretta Young was an American actress. Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953...

 Show, Private Secretary

Private Secretary (TV series)

Private Secretary is an American sitcom that aired from February 1, 1953 to September 10, 1957 on CBS, alternating with The Jack Benny Program on Sundays at 7:30pm EST...

, The Bob Cummings Show

The Bob Cummings Show

The Bob Cummings Show is an American sitcom starring Robert "Bob" Cummings which was produced from January 2, 1955 to September 15, 1959, and originally sponsored by R.J. Reynolds' Winston cigarettes...

, This Man Dawson

This Man Dawson

This Man Dawson is a syndicated drama television series starring Keith Andes as a former United States Marine Corps colonel hired to clean up police corruption in an undisclosed American city. The thirty-three episodes, in which Andes portrayed Chief Frank Dawson, aired during the 1959-1960...

, Zane Grey

Zane Grey

Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the Old West. Riders of the Purple Sage was his bestselling book. In addition to the success of his printed works, they later had second lives and continuing influence...

 Theater, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, Sea Hunt

Sea Hunt

Sea Hunt was an American adventure television series that was aired in syndication by Ziv Television Programs from 1958 to 1961 and was popular in syndication for decades afterwards. The series originally aired for four seasons, with 155 episodes produced...

, Maverick

Maverick (TV series)

Maverick is a western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins. The show ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC and stars James Garner as Bret Maverick, a cagey, articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother...

, The Twilight Zone

The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)

The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...

, Surfside 6

Surfside 6

Surfside 6 was an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered around a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield, II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison ; and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne...

, 77 Sunset Strip

77 Sunset Strip

77 Sunset Strip is an hour-length American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes....

, Wagon Train

Wagon Train

Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65...

, Hawaiian Eye

Hawaiian Eye

Hawaiian Eye is an American television series that ran from October 1959 to September 1963 on the American Broadcasting Company television network.-Premise:...

, McHale's Navy

McHale's Navy

McHale's Navy is an American television sitcom series which ran for 138 half-hour episodes from October 11,1962, to August 31, 1966, on the ABC network. The series was filmed in black and white and originated in a one-hour drama called Seven Against the Sea, broadcast on April 3, 1962...

, Perry Mason

Perry Mason (TV series)

Perry Mason is an American legal drama produced by Paisano Productions that ran from September 1957 to May 1966 on CBS. The title character, portrayed by Raymond Burr, is a fictional Los Angeles defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner...

, Bonanza

Bonanza

Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...

, Mannix

Mannix

Mannix is an American television detective series that ran from 1967 through 1975 on CBS. Created by Richard Levinson and William Link and developed by executive producer Bruce Geller, the title character, Joe Mannix, is a private investigator. He is played by Mike Connors...

, and The Name of the Game

The Name of the Game (TV series)

The Name of the Game is an American television series starring Tony Franciosa, Gene Barry, and Robert Stack that ran from 1968 to 1971 on NBC, totaling 76 episodes of 90 minutes. It was a pioneering wheel series, setting the stage for the likes of The Bold Ones and the NBC Mystery Movie in the 1970s...

.

In 1955, Archer portrayed L.H. Musgrove

L.H. Musgrove

L. H. Musgrove was an outlaw of the American West who was sprung from jail in Denver, Colorado, and hanged by a vigilante mob. Over a number of years, he had been was charged with several murders and the theft of horses....

 in the series finale of Jim Davis

Jim Davis (actor)

Jim Davis was an American actor, best known for his role as Jock Ewing in the CBS prime-time soap Dallas, a role which he held up until his death in April 1981.-Biography:...

's syndicated

Television syndication

In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...

 western

Western (genre)

The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 series, Stories of the Century

Stories of the Century

Stories of the Century is a Western television series that ran in syndication through Republic Pictures between January 23, 1954, and March 11, 1955.-Synopsis:...

.

Archer was married twice. From 1941-1955, he was wed to actress Marjorie Lord

Marjorie Lord

Marjorie Lord is an American television and film actress. She played Kathy "Clancy" Williams opposite Danny Thomas on Make Room for Daddy and later Make Room for Granddaddy.-Early life and career:...

, thereafter co-star of The Danny Thomas Show

The Danny Thomas Show

The Danny Thomas Show is an American sitcom which ran from 1953-1957 on ABC and from 1957-1964 on CBS...

. The couple had two children, including daughter Anne

Anne Archer

Anne Archer is an American actress who has performed in feature films, television, and stage and was named Miss Golden Globe in 1971. Among her best known roles is that of Beth Gallagher in the 1987 movie Fatal Attraction, for which she received a nomination for an Academy Award.-Career:Archer's...

. He had two children with his second wife, Ann Leddy, as well, to whom he was married from 1956 until his death from lung cancer

Lung cancer

Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...

 in Redmond, Washington

Redmond, Washington

Redmond is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located east of Seattle. The population was 54,144 at the 2010 census,up from 45,256 in 2000....

.

External links