Hans Conried

**Hans Georg Conried Jr** (15 April 1917 - 5 January 1982) was an American actor and comedian.

He was a panelist in two incarnations of *Match Game*:

* Match Game (1973)
* Match Game PM

## Early Life

Conried was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to parents Edith Beryl (née Gildersleeve) and Hans Georg Conried Sr. His Connecticut-born mother was a descendant of Pilgrims, and his father was a Jewish immigrant from Vienna, Austria. He was raised in Baltimore and in New York City.

He studied acting at Columbia University and went on to play major classical roles onstage. Conried worked in radio before turning to movies in 1939. During World War II, he enlisted in the United States Army in September 1944.

Conried trained at Fort Knox as a tank crewman until the army decided he was too tall. He became a heavy mortar crewman, then was sent to the Philippines as an engineer laborer until fellow actor Jack Kruschen obtained his release for service with the Armed Forces Radio Service.

## Career

### Radio and Voice Work

One of Conried's early radio appearances came in 1937, when he appeared in a supporting role in a broadcast of *The Taming of the Shrew* on KECA in Los Angeles, California. Four years later, a newspaper reported about his role in *Hedda Hopper's Hollywood*: "But at the mike, he's equally convincing as old men, drunks, dialeticians, or Shakesperean tragedians. Miss Hopper favors him for her dramatizations when the script will allow him, as she puts it, 'to have his head.'"

Conried appeared regularly on radio during the 1940s and 1950s. He was in the regular cast of Orson Welles' *Ceiling Unlimited*, for which he wrote the 14 December 1942 episode, "War Workers". In the *The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show*, he played a psychiatrist whom George regularly consults for help in dealing with the ditzy Gracie.

Conried made his Broadway debut in *Can-Can* and was credited in six films, among them *The Twonky* and *The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T*, all in 1953. Other Broadway productions include *70, Girls, 70* and *Irene*.

Conried appeared much older than his actual age and he was frequently cast as middle-aged or even elderly pompous scholarly types. His inimitable growl and impeccable diction were well-suited to the roles he played, whether portraying the dim Professor Kropotkin in the radio show *My Friend Irma* or portraying comic villains and mock-sinister or cranky types, such as Mr. Darling and Captain Hook in *Peter Pan*, following the tradition of having both characters portrayed by the same actor, and The Grinch/Narrator from Dr. Seuss' *Halloween Is Grinch Night*. According to the DVD commentary of *Futurama*, he was the inspiration for the voice created for Robot Devil. He was a live action model reference of King Stefan in *Sleeping Beauty*, and though he was replaced by Taylor Holmes for the voice role, he recorded a few dialogues.

Conried was a cast member of other Dr. Seuss specials and *The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show*, voicing the character of Snidely Whiplash in the *Dudley Do-Right* shorts, a creation of Jay Ward and Bill Scott, as well as Wally Walrus in *The Woody Woodpecker Show*, Professor Waldo P. Wigglesworth in *Hoppity Hooper*, and Dr. Dred in *Drak Pack*. He also performed as the "slave in the mirror" character, hosting several memorable episodes of *Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color*.

### Television

Besides hosting *Fractured Flickers*, Conried was a regular panelist in the pantomime program *Stump the Stars* and a semi-regular guest in the Ernie Kovacs-hosted game show *Take a Good Look*. He was a regular guest of Jack Paar's *Tonight Show* from 1959 to 1962. Conried joined the cast of *The Tony Randall Show* during the 1977-78 season.

His many guest appearances included *I Love Lucy*, *Davy Crockett*, *The Californians*, *Meet McGraw*, *Hey, Jeannie!*, *The Ray Milland Show*, *The DuPont Show with June Allyson*, *The Real McCoys*, *The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis*, *Mister Ed*, *The Islanders*, *Ben Casey*, *Dr. Kildare*, *Lost in Space*, *Daniel Boone*, *The Beverly Hillbillies*, *The Lucy Show*, *Gilligan's Island*, *The Monkees*, *Have Gun – Will Travel*, *Love, American Style*, *Here's Lucy*, *Kolchak*, *Alice*, *Laverne & Shirley*, *The Love Boat*, *Hogan's Heroes*, *Maverick*, *The Donna Reed Show*, *What's It For*, *Fantasy Island*, and *Quark*.

From 1955 to 1964, Conried made twenty-one guest appearances as Danny Thomas' Uncle Tonoose in *Make Room for Daddy* on ABC and then CBS. He was featured in the 1958 episode "What Makes Opera Grand?" in the anthology series *Omnibus*. The episode, an analysis by Leonard Bernstein, showing the powerful effect of music in opera, featured Conried as Marcello in a spoken dramatization of Act III of Puccini's *La Bohème*. The program demonstrated the effect of the music in *La Bohème* by having actors speak portions of the libretto in English, followed by opera singers singing the same lines in the original Italian.

## Personal Life

He married Margaret Grant on 29 January 1942; the couple had four children. Conried had a long history of heart problems and suffered a stroke in 1974 and a mild heart attack in 1979. He remained active until his death on 5 January 1982, one day after suffering a major heart attack. His remains were donated to medical science.