Earl Hammond

Earl Hammond, a thespian who acted in radio, movies, television, and on Broadway in a career that spanned a remarkable 70 years, was born Erwin Saul Hamburger on June 17, 1921 in New York City. He became a professional actor on radio at the age of seven and continued working in that venue for over 50 years. As a radio actor, he had a recurring part on the soap opera "Days of Our Lives" in the 1940s and appeared on the "CBS Radio Mystery Theater" from 1979 to 1982. His family moved to Buffalo, where he began appearing on radio station WGR in 1938, after he graduated from high school. He eventually moved to California, where he studied drama at Los Angeles City College. After graduating in 1941, he was drafted and served in the Army during WWII. Hammond returned to New York City after being demobilized and appeared in theater and on the radio. Hammond made his TV debut on the Kraft Theatre (1947) episode "Ladies in Retirement" (1950), then had a recurring role as Sergent Lane on the TV Series Rocky King, Detective (1950) (syndicated as "Rocky King, Detective") in 1953. He appeared regularly in TV during the 1950s and '60s (his TV work slackening off in the '70s), but did not make his movie debut until 1962, in the B-movie Satan in High Heels (1962). He appeared in three Broadway plays from 1957 to 1959. He was in the short-lived musical "Livin' The Life' in the spring of 1957 and played Roddy McDowall''s father in Compulsion (1959) in the 1957-58 season. He last trod the boards on the Great White Way in the unsuccessful musical "Juno" in the spring of 1959. Late in his career, he became a voice actor, supplying voice-overs for the TV series Star Blazers (1979), The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (1986), Silverhawks (1986), and _"Thundercats" (1985). He also did voice work on audiotapes. _Pope John Paul II_ personally selected him to be his "voice" on the audio book made from the Pope's book "Crossing the Threshold of Hope". Earl Hammond died of heart failure on May 17, 2002 in New York City. He was 80 years old.