Robert Young
Robert George Young (February 22, 1907 – July 21, 1998) was an American television, film, and radio actor, best known for his leading roles as Jim Anderson, the father of Father Knows Best (NBC and then CBS) and as physician Marcus Welby in Marcus Welby, M.D. (ABC).
Young appeared in over 100 films between 1931 and 1952. After appearing on stage, Young was signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and, in spite of having a "tier B" status, he co-starred with some of the studio's most illustrious actr
As an MGM contract player, Young was resigned to the fate of most of his colleagues—to accept any film assigned to him or risk being placed on suspension—and many actors on suspension were prohibited from earning a salary from any endeavor at all (even those unrelated to the film industry). In 1936, MGM summarily loaned Young to Gaumont British for two films; the first was directed by Alfred Hitchcock with the other co-starring Jessie Matthews. While there he surmised that his employers intended to terminate his contract, but he was mistaken.
He unexpectedly received one of his most rewarding roles late in his MGM career, in H.M. Pulham, Esq., featuring one of Hedy Lamarr's most effective performances. He once remarked that he was assigned only those roles which Robert Montgomery and other A-list actors had rejected.
After his contract ended at MGM, Young starred in light comedies as well as in trenchant dramas for studios such as 20th Century Fox, United Artists, and RKO Radio Pictures. From 1943, Young assayed more challenging roles in films like Claudia, The Enchanted Cottage, They Won't Believe Me, The Second Woman, and Crossfire. His portrayal of unsympathetic characters in several of these later films—which was seldom the case in his MGM pictures—was applauded by numerous reviewers.
Young's career began an incremental and imperceptible decline, despite a propitious beginning as a freelance actor without the nurturing of a major studio. He continued starring as a leading man in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but only in mediocre films, then he subsequently disappeared from the silver screen - only to reappear several years later on a much smaller one.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Young (actor), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Born
Feb 22, 1907
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Died
Jul 21, 1998
Known For
Acting
Movies
113 acting
0 crew
Popularity
1.4
Add to Watchlist
Movie will be added to your watchlist