Wendell Corey

Wendell Corey (full name Wendell Reid Corey; March 20, 1914 – November 8, 1968) was an American film and television actor and politician. He is known for his role as the detective in Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window; He also served as president of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the early 1960s.

He was born in Dracut, Massachusetts, the son of a Congregationalist clergyman, and was educated in Springfield. He started acting in a repertory theater in this city, then turned to professional theater.

Cinema and television

He moved to Hollywood in the second half of the 1940s, signing a contract with Paramount through producer Hal Wallis. He played a gangster in one of his first films, Desert Fury (1947), and then starred with Barbara Stanwyck in The File on Thelma Jordon (1950). In 1954, he played police detective Tom Doyle, an old friend of the photographer played by James Stewart, in Rear Window. Between 1947 and 1968, he took part in nearly 80 productions in cinema and television.

Climax on TV! He played baseball player Lou Gehrig in an episode of the anthology, and in the late 1950s he starred in the TV series Harbor Command. In the 1960s, he guest-starred on TV series such as Burke's Law, The Wild Wild West and Perry Mason.

He was president of the academy that organizes the Oscars between 1961 and 1963, and also took part in the management of the actors' union. Corey, who was close to the Republican Party, was elected to the Santa Monica city council in 1965 and remained in that position until his death. He died in California on November 8, 1968, at the age of 54. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his television work.