# Bradford Dillman

Bradford Dillman (April 14, 1930 – January 16, 2018) was an American actor and author.

## Early life

Bradford Dillman was born on April 14, 1930, in San Francisco, the son of Dean Dillman, a stockbroker, and Josephine (née Moore). Bradford's paternal grandparents were Charles Francis Dillman and Stella Borland Dean. He studied at Town School for Boys and St. Ignatius High School from which he graduated in 1949. He later attended the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, where he became involved with school theatre productions. While at Yale University, he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1948. While a student, he was a member of the Yale Dramatic Association, Fence Club, Torch Honor Society, The Society of Orpheus and Bacchus, WYBC and Berzelius. He graduated from Yale in 1951 with a BA in English Literature.
After graduation, he entered the United States Marine Corps as an officer candidate, training at Parris Island. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps in September 1951. As he was preparing to deploy to the war in Korea, his orders were changed, and he spent the rest of his time in the Marine Corps, from 1951 to 1953, teaching communication in the Instructors' Orientation Course. He was discharged in 1953 with the rank of first lieutenant.

## Career

Studying with the Actors Studio, Dillman spent several seasons apprenticing with the Sharon, Connecticut Playhouse before making his professional acting debut in The Scarecrow in 1953.

### Broadway

Dillman first performed in a Broadway play as part of the U.S. premiere cast of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night in November 1956. He portrayed the author's alter-ego character Edmund Tyrone and won a Theatre World Award for his performance. The production also featured Fredric March, Florence Eldridge and Jason Robards Jr., and played for 390 performances until March 1958.
During 1955 he appeared in an episode of the television series The Big Picture as an MP patrolling the city of Augusta, Georgia. In 1957, Katharine Cornell cast him in a Hallmark Hall of Fame television production of Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize winning 1940 play, There Shall Be No Night.

### 20th Century Fox

Dillman was cast in the movie melodrama A Certain Smile (1958). He followed this with In Love and War (1958), a war movie featuring many of 20th Century Fox's young contract players, for which he earned a Golden Globe award. It was a financial success. So too was Compulsion (1959), featuring Dillman, Dean Stockwell and Orson Welles for producer Richard Zanuck and director Richard Fleischer.
Dillman shared an award for Best Actor with Stockwell and Welles at the Cannes Film Festival. After making the movie Circle of Deception (1960) in London, Dillman was reunited with Welles, Fleischer and Zanuck for Crack in the Mirror (1960), filmed in Paris. It was unsuccessful. Back in Hollywood, Fox cast Dillman in support of Yves Montand and Lee Remick in Sanctuary (1961). They also had him in the title role in Francis of Assisi (1961).

### Television

When he quit Fox, Dillman mostly concentrated on television. He guest-starred in a 1963 episode of The Virginian, titled: "Echo of Another Day" also appearing in S2E22 12 O’Clock High, “Twenty-Fifth Mission’. He co-featured with Diana Hyland in the Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode "To Catch A Butterfly" in February 1963, and with Barbara Barrie in the 1964 Hitchcock Hour episode "Isabel". He appeared in seven episodes of Dr. Kildare (1964–66) and 26 of Court Martial (1965–66). He guest-featured in television series such as The F.B.I. (six episodes), Ironside (two episodes), Shane, The Name of the Game, Columbo, The Wild Wild West, Night Gallery, The Eleventh Hour, Wagon Train, The Greatest Show on Earth, Breaking Point, Mission: Impossible (two episodes), The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cannon, Barnaby Jones (six episodes), Three for the Road, Wonder Woman and a two-part episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which was made into the feature movie The Helicopter Spies (1968).
Dillman appeared twice in the Western television series The Big Valley (1965–69), once in season two, episode 15, titled "Day of the Comet", broadcast December 26, 1966; and the second time in season three, episode 9, titled "A Noose is Waiting", which was broadcast November 13, 1967. He appeared in occasional movies during this period, including A Rage to Live (1965), Sergeant Ryker (1968), and The Bridge at Remagen (1969).
Dillman played painter Richard Pickman in the television adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's 1926 story, Pickman's Model, presented as the opening act of a December 1971 Night Gallery episode. In 1970 Bradford in the role of a U.S. Army captain starred with Brian Keith and Tony Curtis in the TV film Suppose They Gave A War and Nobody Came. He starred as Tony Goodland in "the Greenhouse Jungle", the second episode of the second season of Columbo (initially aired on October 15, 1972). He also starred as the sadistic hunter Michael Sutton in "The Snare", the ninth episode in the third season of The Incredible Hulk (initially aired on December 7, 1979).

### Later career and author

Dillman appeared in made-for-television movies such as Fear No Evil (1969), Moon of the Wolf (1972), and Deliver Us from Evil (1973). His film work included Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), The Way We Were (1973), Gold (1974), Bug (1975), The Enforcer (1976), The Swarm (1978), Piranha (1978), Sudden Impact (1983), and Lords of the Deep (1989). He appeared in 10 episodes of Falcon Crest (1982–83), and 2 of Dynasty (1984). His last known acting appearance was an episode of Murder, She Wrote in 1995, his eighth guest appearance on the series.
Dillman's football fan book, Inside The New York Giants, was published in 1995. An autobiography, Are You Anybody?: An Actor's Life, was published in 1997.

## Personal life

From 1956 to 1962, Dillman was married to Frieda Harding and had two children with her. He met actress and model Suzy Parker during the production of Circle of Deception (1960). The couple married on April 20, 1963, and had three children. The marriage lasted until Parker's death on May 3, 2003.
Dillman was a cousin of the eccentric author and heiress Aimee Crocker.
Dillman lived for many years in Montecito, California, and helped raise money for medical research. He died in Santa Barbara, California, on January 16, 2018, aged 87, due to complications of pneumonia.
Bradford Dillman was the actor's real name. He said "Bradford Dillman sounded like a distinguished, phony, theatrical name -- so I kept it."

## Selected filmography

* A Certain Smile (1958) as Bertrand Griot
* In Love and War (1958) as Alan Newcombe
* Compulsion (1959) as Arthur A. Straus
* Crack in the Mirror (1960) as Larnier / Claude
* Circle of Deception (1960) as Capt. Paul Raine
* Sanctuary (1961) as Gowan Stevens
* Francis of Assisi (1961) as Francis Bernardone of Assisi
* Monstrosity (1963) as Narrator (voice, uncredited)
* Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1963) (Season 1 Episode 19: "To Catch a Butterfly") as Bill Nelson
* Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1964) (Season 2 Episode 31: "Isabel") as Howard Clements
* A Rage to Live (1965) as Sidney Tate
* The Plainsman (1966) as Lt. Stiles
* The Helicopter Spies (1968) as Luther Sebastian (archive footage)
* Sergeant Ryker (1968) as Capt. David Young (uses archive footage) This was a recut version of a TV film first shown as a two-part episode of NBC's Kraft Suspense Theatre, which spawned the series Court Martial
* Jigsaw (1968) as Jonathan Fields
* Fear No Evil (1969, TV Movie) as Paul Varney
* The Bridge at Remagen (1969) as Major Barnes
* Mastermind (1969) as Jabez Link
* Black Water Gold (1970, TV Movie) as Lyle Fawcett
* Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came (1970) as Capt. Myerson
* Brother John (1971) as Lloyd Thomas
* Night Gallery (1971) (Season 2 episode "Pickman's Model") as Richard Upton Pickman
* The Mephisto Waltz (1971) as Bill Delancey
* Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) as Dr. Lewis Dixon
* Five Desperate Women (1971, TV Movie) as Jim Meeker
* The Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler (1971) as Sen. Clayton Zachary Wheeler
* Moon of the Wolf (1972, TV movie) as Andrew Rodanthe
* Mission: Impossible (1972, TV series) as Larry Edison
* Deliver Us from Evil (1973, TV Movie) as Steven Dennis
* The Way We Were (1973) as J.J.
* The Iceman Cometh (1973) as Willie Oban
* Chosen Survivors (1974) as Peter Macomber
* 99 and 44/100% Dead (1974) as Big Eddie
* Gold (1974) as Manfred Steyner
* A Black Ribbon for Deborah (1974) as Michel Lagrange
* The Disappearance of Flight 412 (1974, TV Movie) as Maj. Mike Dunning
* Bug (1975) as James Parmiter
* Mastermind (1976) as Jabez Link
* The Enforcer (1976) as Capt. Jerome McKay
* One Away (1976) as Ruben Bass
* The Hostage Heart (1977, TV movie) as Dr. Eric Lake
* The Amsterdam Kill (1977) as Howard Odums
* The Lincoln Conspiracy (1977) as John Wilkes Booth
* The Swarm (1978) as Major Baker
* Piranha (1978) as Paul Grogan
* Love and Bullets (1979) as Jim Brickman
* Guyana: Crime of the Century (1979) as Dr. Gary Shaw
* The Memory of Eva Ryker (1980, TV Movie) as Jason Eddington
* Running Scared (1980) as Arthur Jaeger
* The Legend of Walks Far Woman (1982, TV Movie) as Singer
* Sudden Impact (1983) as Captain Briggs
* Treasure of the Amazon (1985) as Clark
* Man Outside (1987) as Frank Simmons
* Lords of the Deep (1989) as Dobler
* Heroes Stand Alone (1989) as Walt Simmons