John Breen

Clothed in anonymity, actors like John Breen are often overlooked by movie and television audiences alike. Breen started in films in the 1930s and worked steadily in movies through the early 1950s. Unfortunately for him, his short appearance and natural curly hair didn't allow him to fall into the typical dinner party scenes in dramas so much of his work was in the background as one of the local citizens, courtroom spectators, or bar patrons. Like many of his counterparts, by the 1950s, Breen found his way into television and really excelled at it while still appearing in films in the usual courtroom scenes. He managed to appear in many of the early television shows dramas like Dangerous Assignment (1950), Screen Directors Playhouse (1955), and Adventures of Superman (1952). By the late 1950s he found a niche for himself doing television westerns appearing in many television episodes as waiters, and just your typical townsman working for the lower budget television companies like ZIV and Four Star productions. In the early 1960s his career was going strong and he found steady work on Bonanza (1959) and Gunsmoke (1955) while still managing to appear in other westerns like The Virginian (1962), The Rifleman (1958), The Big Valley (1965), and Cimarron Strip (1967), finally wrapping up his long career in 1968.