# Philip Coolidge

Philip Coolidge (August 5, 1908 – May 23, 1967) was an American stage, film, and television actor, who performed predominantly in supporting roles during a career that spanned over three decades, from 1930 to the late 1960s.

## Early life

Born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1908, Philip was the youngest of eight children of Mary (née Colt) and Sidney E. Coolidge, who was the treasurer for a local textile company and later the owner of a bleachery. The 1910 federal census documents that the Coolidge household included two live-in maids and a full-time cook, indications that Sydney's executive positions and income provided his family with an upper-class lifestyle. That status also allowed Philip later to attend the prestigious Milton Academy, where he completed his secondary education.

## Stage career

Following his graduation from Milton, Philip worked initially in radio, serving as an announcer for a station in Boston. Soon, though, he chose another career path, one as a stage actor. In 1930 he made his debut with the Peabody Repertory Company in Boston, playing four different roles in the troupe's production of Romeo and Juliet. Coolidge over the next several years performed in assorted plays in Boston, at the Globe Theatre in Chicago, and elsewhere with traveling companies. By 1938 he began acting regularly in New York City, where that year he was cast as the church organist Simon Stimson in the original Broadway production of Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, which was presented at Henry Miller's Theatre and co-starred Frank Craven and Martha Scott. Over the next 26 years, even after he expanded his acting career into films and television, Coolidge continued to appear in a wide variety of stage productions, including many more on Broadway. He performed there in the 1940s in plays such as Suzanna and the Elders, In Time to Come, Jacobowsky and the Colonel, Barefoot Boy With Cheek, and The Traitor. Then, in the 1950s, he was cast in The Liar (1950), Legend of Sarah, Darkness at Noon, Barefoot in Athens, The Gambler, The Crucible, as Omar Khayyam in Kismet, and in A Visit to a Small Planet. His final appearances on the "Great White Way" were in the early 1960s as Mr. Nicklebush in Rhinoceros and as the Danish ambassador Voltemand in a modern, highly stylized interpretation of Hamlet directed by John Gielgud and starring Richard Burton.

### Reputation as stage actor and director

Often acknowledged in trade publications and in newspaper reviews for his effective performances in the "legitimate" theatre, Coolidge drew special attention for his work on Broadway in Darkness at Noon (1951) and in The Gambler (1952). The popular trade paper Variety in its January 17, 1951 assessment of Darkness at Noon commends the actor for his "persuasive" representation of a "sardonic political prisoner" trying to survive the brutality and paranoia of a Soviet-style revolution. The following year, in its October 15 review of The Gambler, the critic for Variety includes Coolidge among what he describes as the play's "unusually good" supporting cast, more specifically for the actor's portrayal of Commissioner Costa, "the practical but puzzled trial examiner". While Coolidge was repeatedly recognized as an accomplished theatre actor during his career, by the late 1940s he was also being contracted to direct major productions. For instance, in Washington, D.C., in 1948 he directed the comedy There Goes the Bride, which premiered May 10 that year at the National Theatre and starred Ilka Chase and Robert Alda.

## Films

When considering the length of Coolidge's acting career, which lasted nearly 40 years, his filmography appears to be rather modest in length, amounting to only 15 productions. English film historian and critic David Quinlan contends in his 1986 book The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Movie Character Actors that Coolidge was "considerably under-used by Hollywood", that the "Dark, lanky, stoop-shouldered American actor of hangdog aspect" was ultimately only a "visitor" to films when compared to his other work in stage and television productions.
By the late 1940s, Coolidge also began acting in feature films. His first film role, though uncredited on screen, is in the 1947 20th-Century Fox crime drama Boomerang starring Dana Andrews and Jane Wyatt. A few of his subsequent credited appearances include his portrayal of a self-protective small-town mayor in Inherit the Wind (1960), as Dr. Cross in North by Northwest (1959), and as Wilbur Peterson in It Happened to Jane (1959).

## Television

In 1958, in the TV Western Gunsmoke, he starred as "Harry Pope", a widower from the east who fled west after the loss of his wife and who was harassed by cowboys because he was different; ultimately he killed two cowboys as they killed him.
Rarely cast as a leading character, Coolidge plays the shopkeeper Throckmorton in the 1962 episode "A Piano in the House" on the classic science fiction series The Twilight Zone. He also portrays William Windom's butler, "Mr. Cooper", in the first season of the 1960s sitcom The Farmer's Daughter.

## Personal life and death

Coolidge, who never married, died at age 58 of lung cancer at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles in May 1967. In accordance with his instructions, no funeral was held and his body was cremated. The veteran actor had continued to perform until shortly before his death, managing to complete the filming of his scenes as the character "Fingers" Felton in the Walt Disney production Never a Dull Moment. That crime comedy, starring Dick Van Dyke, was not released to theaters until June 1968, more than a year after Coolidge died.

## Filmography

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 1947 | Boomerang | Jim Crossman | Uncredited |
| 1956 | The Sharkfighters | Lieutenant Commander Leonard Evans | |
| 1957 | Slander | Homer Crowley | |
| 1958 | I Want to Live! | Emmett Perkins | |
| 1959 | The Mating Game | Reverend Osgood | |
| 1959 | It Happened to Jane | Wilbur Peterson | |
| 1959 | North by Northwest | Dr. Cross | |
| 1959 | The Tingler | Oliver 'Ollie' Higgins | |
| 1960 | The Bramble Bush | Colin Eustis | |
| 1960 | Because They're Young | Mr. Rimer | |
| 1960 | Inherit the Wind | Mayor Jason Carter | |
| 1962 | Bon Voyage! | Passport Clerk | Uncredited |
| 1965 | The Greatest Story Ever Told | Chuza | |
| 1965 | The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming | Mr. Porter | |
| 1968 | Never a Dull Moment | Fingers Felton | (final film role) |

## Selected television roles

| Year | Series | Role | Episode |
| 1949 | Suspense | Mr. Mason | Season 1 Pilot Episode: "Goodbye New York" |
| 1951 | Kraft Television Theatre | Masterson | Season 4 Episode 37: "A Seacoast in Bohemia" |
| 1951 | Schlitz Playhouse | | Season 1 Episode 2: "The Name is Bellingham" |
| 1951 | Schlitz Playhouse | | Season 1 Episode 12: "Dark Fleece" |
| 1952 | Lux Video Theatre | Lieutenant Colonel Finley | Season 2 Episode 48: "Brigadier" |
| 1953 | Lux Video Theatre | Major | Season 3 Episode 46: "The Corporal and the Lady" |
| 1954 | Producers' Showcase | Bert Bentley | Season 1 Episode 1: "Tonight at 8:30" (Segment: "Red Peppers") |
| 1955 | The Alcoa Hour | Mr. Herbert | Season 1 Episode 4: "Thunder in Washington" |
| 1956 | Lux Video Theatre | Malloby | Season 6 Episode 24: "Criminal Code" |
| 1956 | Playhouse 90 | | Season 1 Episode 12: "The Family Nobody Wanted" |
| 1956 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | Henri Tallendier | Season 1 Episode 24: "The Perfect Murder" |
| 1956 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | Talbot | Season 1 Episode 26: "Whodunit" |
| 1956 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | Lieutenant Brandt | Season 1 Episode 37: "Decoy" |
| 1956 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | Bud | Season 2 Episode 3: "Demortuis" |
| 1957 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | Sam Henderson | Season 2 Episode 22: "The End of Indian Summer" |
| 1957 | The United States Steel Hour | Mr. Clements | Season 5 Episode 5: "The Locked Hour" |
| 1958 | Gunsmoke | Harry Pope | Season 4 Episode 12: "Grass" |
| 1959 | Have Gun - Will Travel | Aaron Murdock | Season 2 Episode 33: "Sons of Aaron Murdock " |
| 1959 | Tales of Wells Fargo | Old John | Season 4 Episode 11: "End of a Legend" |
| 1959 | Schlitz Playhouse | Flaherty | Season 8 Episode 15: "The Rumor" |
| 1959 | Alfred Hitchcock Presents | William Tritt | Season 4 Episode 33: "The Dusty Drawer" |
| 1960 | Playhouse 90 | Albert Bigelow Paine | Season 4 Episode 16: "The Shape of the River" |
| 1961 | The Play of the Week | Grivet | Season 2 Episode 25: "Thérèse Raquin" |
| 1961 | Route 66 | Old Codger | Season 2 Episode 7: "The Mud Nest" |
| 1961 | The Defenders | Dr. Lillis | Season 1 Episode 1: "The Quality of Mercy" |
| 1962 | Have Gun - Will Travel | Dr. Leopold Avatar | Season 5 Episode 19: "The Mark of Cain" |
| 1962 | The Alfred Hitchcock Hour | "Reverend" Locke | Season 1 Episode 3: "Night of the Owl" |
| 1962 | Gunsmoke | Len Fetch | Season 7 Episode 18: "Old Dan" |
| 1962 | The Twilight Zone | Throckmorton | Season 3 Episode 22: "A Piano in the House" |
| 1962 | Ichabod and Me | Samuel Cheever | Season 1 Episode 24: "Big Business" |
| 1962 | Ichabod and Me | Cheever | Season 1 Episode 28: "Election Fever" |
| 1962 | Target: The Corruptors | | Season 1 Episode 15: "A Man is Waiting to Be Murdered" |
| 1963 | McKeever and the Colonel | Major Beadle | Season 1 Episode 25: "Blackwell, the Retread" |
| 1963 | The Defenders | Joe Lundeen | Season 2 Episode 26: "The Heathen" |
| 1963-1964 | The Farmer's Daughter | Chester Cooper | 22 episodes |
| 1965 | Gunsmoke | Owney Dales | Season 10 Episode 18: "One Killer on Ice" |
| 1965 | Bewitched | Mr. Trigby | Season 2 Episode 6: "Take Two Aspirins and Half a Pint of Porpoise Milk" |
| 1965 | Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color | Frank | Season 11 Episode 24: "Kilroy: Part 3" |
| 1965 | Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color | Frank | Season 11 Episode 25: "Kilroy: Part 4" |
| 1966 | The Tammy Grimes Show | Abner | Season 1 Episode 4: "Positively Made in Paris" |
| 1966 | ABC Stage 67 | Farley | Season 1 Episode 1: "The Love Song of Barney Kempinski" |