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Arthur O'Connell (March 29, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an American stage and film actor. He appeared in films (starting with a small role in Citizen Kane) in 1941 and television programs (mostly guest appearances). Among his screen appearances were Picnic, Anatomy of a Murder, and as the watch-maker who hides Jews during WWII in The Hiding Place. A veteran vaudevillian, O'Connell, from New York City, made his legitimate stage debut in the mid 1930s, at which time he fell within the orbit of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. Welles cast O'Connell in the tiny role of a reporter in the closing scenes of Citizen Kane (1941), a film often referred to as O'Connell's film debut, though in fact he had already appeared in Freshman Year (1939) and had costarred in two Leon Errol short subjects as Leon's conniving brother-in-law. After numerous small movie parts, O'Connell returned to Broadway, where he appeared as the erstwhile middle-aged swain of a spinsterish schoolteacher in Picnic - a role he'd recreate in the 1956 film version, earning an Oscar nomination in the process. Later the jaded looking O'Connell was frequently cast as fortyish losers and alcoholics; in the latter capacity he appeared as James Stewart's boozy attorney mentor in Anatomy of a Murder (1959), and the result was another Oscar nomination. In 1962 O'Connell portrayed the father of Elvis Presley's character in the motion picture Follow That Dream, and in 1964 in the Presley-picture Kissin' Cousins. O'Connell continued appearing in choice character parts on both TV and films during the 1960s, but avoided a regular television series, holding out until he could be assured top billing. He appeared as Joseph Baylor in the 1964 episode "A Little Anger Is a Good Thing" on the ABC medical drama about psychiatry, Breaking Point. The actor accepted the part of a man who discovers that his 99-year-old father has been frozen in an iceberg on the 1967 sitcom The Second Hundred Years, assuming he'd be billed first per the producers' agreement. Instead, top billing went to newcomer Monte Markham in the dual role of O'Connell's father and his son. O'Connell accepted the demotion to second billing as well as could be expected, but he never again trusted the word of any Hollywood executive. Ill health forced O'Connell to significantly reduce his acting appearances in the mid '70s, but the actor stayed busy as a commercial spokesman, a friendly pharmacist who was a spokesperson for Crest toothpaste. At the time of his death from Alzheimer's disease in California in May 1981, O'Connell was appearing solely in these commercials, by his own choice. O'Connell was buried in Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York. Description above from the Wikipedia article Arthur O'Connell, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Way of Tomorrow: The Evolution of Science Fiction Movies
as Self - (archive footage)

Preminger: Anatomy of a Filmmaker
as actor 'Anatomy of a Murder' (archive footage) (uncredited)

Medical Story
as Dr. Avery Loomis

The Hiding Place
as Casper ten Boom, 'Papa'

Huckleberry Finn
as Col. Grangerford

Shootout in a One-Dog Town
as Henry Gills

Adam's Rib
as Judge

Wicked, Wicked
as Mr. Fenley, Hotel Engineer

The Poseidon Adventure
as John, the Chaplain

They Only Kill Their Masters
as Ernie

Ghost Story
as Chief Owen Huston

The Paul Lynde Show

Ben
as Bill Hatfield

Emergency!

A Taste of Evil
as John

Cannon

The Last Valley
as Hoffman

Alias Smith and Jones

Night Gallery

There Was a Crooked Man...
as Mr. Lomax

Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came?
as Mr. Kruft

McCloud

Nanny and the Professor

Seven in Darkness
as Larry Wise

Room 222

If He Hollers, Let Him Go!
as Prosecutor

The Name of the Game
as Charlie Sherwin

The Power
as Prof. Henry Hallson

The Second Hundred Years
as Edwin Carpenter

The Reluctant Astronaut
as Arbuckle "Buck" Fleming

Ironside

A Covenant with Death
as Judge Hockstadter

Fantastic Voyage
as Col. Donald Reid

Birds Do It
as Professor Wald

The Silencers
as Joe Wigman

Ride Beyond Vengeance
as The Narrator

The F.B.I.
as Smitty

The Wild Wild West

The Big Valley
as Jubal

The Monkey's Uncle
as Darius Green III

The Third Day
as Dr. Wheeler

The Great Race
as Henry Goodbody

Nightmare in the Sun
as Sam Wilson

Your Cheatin' Heart
as Fred Rose

7 Faces of Dr. Lao
as Clint Stark

Kissin' Cousins
as Pappy Tatum

Petticoat Junction
as William Lawrence

Burke's Law
as Dr. Stuart Alexander

The Fugitive
as Dr. Josephus Harrison Adams
The Greatest Show on Earth

Arrest and Trial

Marilyn
as archive footage

Sam Benedict

Follow That Dream
as Pop Kwimper

Pocketful of Miracles
as Count Alfonso Romero

The New Breed
as Peter Capples

A Thunder of Drums
as Sgt. Karl Rodermill

Misty
as Grandpa Clarence Beebe

The Great Impostor
as Warden J.B. Chandler

Cimarron
as Tom Wyatt