William Prince (actor)
Encyclopedia
William LeRoy Prince was an American actor
who appeared in numerous soap operas and made dozens of guest appearances on primetime series as well as playing villains in movies like The Gauntlet and Spontaneous Combustion
.
, the son of Myrtle (née Osborne), a nurse and Gorman Prince, who worked in sales.
Prince attended Cornell University
, which he left in his senior year to join a Federal Theater tour of The Taming of the Shrew
. He served an apprenticeship with the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia
, making his New York debut with the company in 1937 in its production of Max Reinhardt
's Eternal Road. He then joined Maurice Evans
's company, appearing in minor Shakespearean roles.
His star began to rise after actress Eva Le Gallienne
, responding to a pleading letter, gave him an audition for the part of 'Richard' in a revival of Eugene O'Neill
's Ah, Wilderness!
He got the part and caught the eye of the critics. His breakthrough came a year later, in 1942, with the role of Private Quizz West in Maxwell Anderson's play The Eve of St. Mark. He was soon signed to a Hollywood contract, and appeared in Destination Tokyo
, Objective Burma, and Dead Reckoning
, among the first of many films to come in his lifetime.
After a mostly undistinguished movie career in the late 1940s, Prince moved to television in the 1950s, having co-starred with Gary Merrill
from 1955-1956 in the second season of Justice
, an NBC
drama
about lawyers of the Legal Aid Society of New York. He also made numerous appearances on anthology drama series such as Studio One
, Philco Television Playhouse, and Armstrong Circle Theatre
.
Prince had roles on several soap operas, including the title role on Young Dr. Malone
from 1958 to 1963, Another World
, As the World Turns
, The Edge of Night
, and A World Apart, often appearing with his actress wife Augusta Dabney
(former wife of actor Kevin McCarthy). Two of his most notable film roles were as Christian de Neuvillette in the 1950 Cyrano de Bergerac
, and as network president Edward Ruddy in Paddy Chayefsky
's 1976 film classic, Network
. He also gained critical acclaim for his portrayal as patriarch Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy in the 1977 teleplay "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye".
Returning to Broadway, he took leading roles in John Loves Mary and Forward the Heart. He appeared as Orlando in As You Like It
, with Katharine Hepburn
, and as Christopher Isherwood in I Am a Camera. In 1963, he played Charles Marsden in the Actors Studio
production of Strange Interlude
. He took leading roles in several plays by Edward Albee
, beginning with The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
in 1963. He appeared opposite Angela Lansbury in Counting the Ways and Listening in 1977, and in 1983 played the title role in The Man Who Had Three Arms
.
During the 1970s, 1980s and into the early-1990s, Prince made guest appearances on dozens of primetime television series and miniseries. In 1980, he and Cyrano star Jose Ferrer
both reunited, appearing in the made-for-television film Gideon's Trumpet
. Ferrer played Justice Abe Fortas
and Prince was seen as one of the other Supreme Court Justices.
William Prince died October 8, 1996, at Phelps Memorial Hospital in Tarrytown, New York
. He was 83, and lived in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. at the time of his death. Prince was survived by his wife, Augusta Dabney (who died in February 2008); a sister, Charlotte, of Orange, Mass.; two daughters, Liza Alldredge, of Claremont, California
, and Dinah, of Brooklyn; two sons, Nicholas, of Manhattan, New York and Jeremy, of Warwick, New York
, and three grandchildren.
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
who appeared in numerous soap operas and made dozens of guest appearances on primetime series as well as playing villains in movies like The Gauntlet and Spontaneous Combustion
Spontaneous Combustion (film)
Spontaneous Combustion is a 1990 film directed by Tobe Hooper. The plot of this science fiction horror film revolves around a young man with psychokinetic powers. Actor Brad Dourif plays the role of Sam, who learns that his parents were part of an atomic bomb experiment. As an adult, Sam discovers...
.
Biography
Prince was born in Nichols, New YorkNichols, New York
Nichols, New York may refer to one of the following locations in New York State:*Nichols , New York*Nichols , New York...
, the son of Myrtle (née Osborne), a nurse and Gorman Prince, who worked in sales.
Prince attended Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, which he left in his senior year to join a Federal Theater tour of The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...
. He served an apprenticeship with the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia
Abingdon, Virginia
Abingdon is a town in Washington County, Virginia, USA, 133 miles southwest of Roanoke. The population was 8,191 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Washington County and is a designated Virginia Historic Landmark...
, making his New York debut with the company in 1937 in its production of Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt
----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...
's Eternal Road. He then joined Maurice Evans
Maurice Evans (actor)
Maurice Herbert Evans was an English actor noted for his interpretations of Shakespearean characters. In terms of his screen roles, he is probably best known as Dr...
's company, appearing in minor Shakespearean roles.
His star began to rise after actress Eva Le Gallienne
Eva Le Gallienne
Eva Le Gallienne was a well-known actress, producer, and director, during the first half of the 20th century.-Early life and early career:...
, responding to a pleading letter, gave him an audition for the part of 'Richard' in a revival of Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
's Ah, Wilderness!
Ah, Wilderness!
Ah, Wilderness! is a comedy by American playwright Eugene O'Neill that premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theatre on 2 October 1933.-Plot summary:...
He got the part and caught the eye of the critics. His breakthrough came a year later, in 1942, with the role of Private Quizz West in Maxwell Anderson's play The Eve of St. Mark. He was soon signed to a Hollywood contract, and appeared in Destination Tokyo
Destination Tokyo
Destination Tokyo is a 1943 submarine war film. It was directed by Delmer Daves and written by Daves, Steve Fisher and Albert Maltz, and stars Cary Grant and John Garfield with featured performances by Dane Clark, Robert Hutton and Warner Anderson. Production began on June 21, 1943 and continued...
, Objective Burma, and Dead Reckoning
Dead reckoning
In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating one's current position by using a previously determined position, or fix, and advancing that position based upon known or estimated speeds over elapsed time, and course...
, among the first of many films to come in his lifetime.
After a mostly undistinguished movie career in the late 1940s, Prince moved to television in the 1950s, having co-starred with Gary Merrill
Gary Merrill
Gary Fred Merrill was an American film and television character actor whose credits included more than fifty feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances....
from 1955-1956 in the second season of Justice
Justice (1954 TV series)
Justice is an NBC half-hour drama television series about attorneys of the Legal Aid Society of New York, which aired from April 8, 1954 to March 25, 1956. In the 1954-1955 season, Justice starred Dane Clark as Richard Adams and Gary Merrill as Jason Tyler. In the 1955-1956 season, William Prince...
, an NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
about lawyers of the Legal Aid Society of New York. He also made numerous appearances on anthology drama series such as Studio One
Studio One (TV series)
Studio One is a long-running American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by the 26-year-old Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC.-Radio:...
, Philco Television Playhouse, and 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:...
.
Prince had roles on several soap operas, including the title role on Young Dr. Malone
Young Doctor Malone
Young Doctor Malone is an American soap opera, created by Irna Phillips, which had a long run on radio and television from 1939 to 1963...
from 1958 to 1963, Another World
Another World (TV series)
Another World is an American television soap opera that ran on NBC from May 4, 1964 to June 25, 1999. It ran for a total of 35 years. It was created by Irna Phillips along with William J...
, As the World Turns
As the World Turns
As the World Turns is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1956 to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created As the World Turns as a sister show to her other soap opera Guiding Light...
, The Edge of Night
The Edge of Night
The Edge of Night is an American television mystery series/soap opera produced by Procter & Gamble. It debuted on CBS on April 2, 1956, and ran as a live broadcast on that network until November 28, 1975; the series then moved to ABC, where it aired from December 1, 1975, until December 28, 1984...
, and A World Apart, often appearing with his actress wife Augusta Dabney
Augusta Dabney
Augusta Dabney was an American actress known for her role as Isabelle Alden on the daytime series Loving...
(former wife of actor Kevin McCarthy). Two of his most notable film roles were as Christian de Neuvillette in the 1950 Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac (1950 film)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a 1950 black-and-white feature film based on the 1897 French Alexandrine verse drama Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. It uses poet Brian Hooker's 1923 English blank verse translation as the basis for its screenplay...
, and as network president Edward Ruddy in Paddy Chayefsky
Paddy Chayefsky
Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky , was an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for Best Screenplay....
's 1976 film classic, Network
Network (film)
Network is a 1976 American satirical film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer about a fictional television network, Union Broadcasting System , and its struggle with poor ratings. The film was written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet...
. He also gained critical acclaim for his portrayal as patriarch Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy in the 1977 teleplay "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye".
Returning to Broadway, he took leading roles in John Loves Mary and Forward the Heart. He appeared as Orlando in As You Like It
As You Like It
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...
, with Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
, and as Christopher Isherwood in I Am a Camera. In 1963, he played Charles Marsden in the Actors Studio
Actors Studio
The Actors Studio is a membership organization for professional actors, theatre directors and playwrights at 432 West 44th Street in the Clinton neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded October 5, 1947, by Elia Kazan, Cheryl Crawford, Robert Lewis and Anna Sokolow who provided...
production of Strange Interlude
Strange Interlude
Strange Interlude is an experimental play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. O'Neill finished the play in 1923, but it was not produced on Broadway until 1928, when it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Lynn Fontanne originated the central role of Nina Leeds on Broadway...
. He took leading roles in several plays by Edward Albee
Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
, beginning with The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
The Ballad of the Sad Café is a novel by Carson McCullers.-Plot:The Ballad of the Sad Café opens on the set of a small, isolated Southern town...
in 1963. He appeared opposite Angela Lansbury in Counting the Ways and Listening in 1977, and in 1983 played the title role in The Man Who Had Three Arms
The Man Who Had Three Arms
This is a two-act play for three actors by Edward Albee.The play takes place in a theatre where the main character HIMSELF is about to speak to the assembled group about his life of celebrity as The Man Who Had Three Arms...
.
During the 1970s, 1980s and into the early-1990s, Prince made guest appearances on dozens of primetime television series and miniseries. In 1980, he and Cyrano star Jose Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
both reunited, appearing in the made-for-television film Gideon's Trumpet
Gideon's Trumpet
Gideon's Trumpet is a book by Anthony Lewis describing the story behind Gideon v. Wainwright, in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that criminal defendants have the right to an attorney even if they cannot afford it...
. Ferrer played Justice Abe Fortas
Abe Fortas
Abraham Fortas was a U.S. Supreme Court associate justice from 1965 to 1969. Originally from Tennessee, Fortas became a law professor at Yale, and subsequently advised the Securities and Exchange Commission. He then worked at the Interior Department under Franklin D...
and Prince was seen as one of the other Supreme Court Justices.
William Prince died October 8, 1996, at Phelps Memorial Hospital in Tarrytown, New York
Tarrytown, New York
Tarrytown is a village in the town of Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, about north of midtown Manhattan in New York City, and is served by a stop on the Metro-North Hudson Line...
. He was 83, and lived in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. at the time of his death. Prince was survived by his wife, Augusta Dabney (who died in February 2008); a sister, Charlotte, of Orange, Mass.; two daughters, Liza Alldredge, of Claremont, California
Claremont, California
Claremont is a small affluent college town in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States, about east of downtown Los Angeles at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The population as of the 2010 census is 34,926. Claremont is known for its seven higher-education institutions, its...
, and Dinah, of Brooklyn; two sons, Nicholas, of Manhattan, New York and Jeremy, of Warwick, New York
Warwick, New York
Warwick is a town in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 30,764 at the 2000 census. The 2007 census population estimate is 32,669.The Town of Warwick is located in the southwest part of the county...
, and three grandchildren.