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Actors Who Were There.....In Real Life Then In Movies.


patches
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Here he is in his first major motion picture roll, as the Prosecutor in To Kill a Mockingbird. He was already well known as a T.V. actor, but this was his first film roll. Again, a good resemblance to Vandervoort.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Here's one I just found while revisiting the WIKI on GO FOR BROKE.

 

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Lane Nakano, Nakno who played Sam, was in the 442th RCT in the war! There were more.

 

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George Miki as Chick the B.A.R. Man.

 

 

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Akira Fukunaga as Frank.

 

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Ken K. Okamoto as Kaz

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Harry Hamada as Masami

 

 

 

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BILL THE PATCH

Those guys must have had some horrible flashbacks filming that movie, how could they not.

 

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Here's a photo of Ken K. Okamoto after the war ended, a Staff Sergeant,center seated, like his character in the movie Okamoto knew how to play the Ukulele.

 

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A little more on Harry Hamada who played Masami, he wrote the Regimental Fight Song.

 

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A Photo of Hamada at Cp Shelby in the summer of 43, a little thinner, and no mustache and van dyke at this time :D

 

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Salvage Sailor

I'm surprised that no one has yet listed one of the greatest Hollywood actors of the golden age (and incidentally, one of my favorite actors)

 

Humphrey Bogart - United States Navy, World War One - Captain Queeg of "The Caine Mutiny" (and Casablanca, Passage to Marseilles, Sahara, Action in the North Atlantic, The African Queen, etc.)

 

Bogart had grown to detest elitism, and had become quite the rebel rouser in his teens. It is commonly reported that Bogart would both smoke and drink on campus regularly, and he would eventually be expelled from his school in his senior year, allegedly for throwing his head master into a pond on campus. This action lost him his opportunity to attend any college, let alone Yale, and led Humphrey Bogart to join the US Navy in 1918.
Humphrey Bogart served on the USS Leviathan, formerly the SS Vaterland, which was a German ocean liner until it was seized and renamed by the US Navy in April of 1917. Leviathan was assigned to ferry US soldiers and German Prisoners of War to and from Europe. Aboard this ship, by most accounts, Bogart was an exemplary sailor. This was quite a distinction from how he was described as a student.

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Salvage Sailor

....and another

 

Robert Taylor, LT USN Naval Aviator 1943-1946 - First in Movies, then in real life

 

With the arrival of the war, Taylor was quick to make his contribution to the effort. As an actor, he made two memorable combat movies: Stand by for Action (1942) and the better known (and for the time, quite graphic) Bataan (1943). From 1943 to 1946, he was in the US Naval Air Corps as a lieutenant, instructing would-be pilots. He also found time to direct two flight instruction training films (1943) and other training films for the Navy. During this time, he also starred in and narrated the 1944 documentary The Fighting Lady.

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James Whitmore, attended Yale on a football scholarship, blew out both knees (which ended his football career) somehow joined the Marines and served in the 4th MarDiv as a Lt. He recd two SS for his actions on Saipan, ended up with amoebic dysentery, and finished his tour in Panama. He was discharged in 1946.

 

 

Whitmore appeared in military movies like Battleground; Tora!Tora!Tora! (playing Adm Bull Halsey, and had cameo performances in TV shows like Combat!, 12 O'clock High; he also starred in a raft of non military movies, the most well-known was Oklahoma. He recd an Oscar nomination for his part in Battleground.

 

I bring this up because there is another better known actor who had a shoulder injury which "kept" him out of the armed forces in WW2, yet is embraced for his patriotism and movie career. I mean, you blow out both knees, and still manage to enlist? I recall interviewing a veteran of the MRS who was completely blind in one eye, and enlisted from his civillian RR career. He passed the eye test by quickly covering and uncovering his good eye, w/ a sleight of hand, so to speak. I interviewd another railroader w/ poor eyesight, but a great memory, and he memorrized the eye chart while waiting in line. But I digress. A pair of SS in the Marines, or any branch, is nothing to slouch. Here is a photo of Mr. Whitmore.

 

 

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Peter Ortiz, unbelievable military service...1932 French Foreign Legion, 1942 USMC, then OSS. Navy Cross (2), Purple Heart (2) and an amazing host of seemingly never ending list of decorations.

He was in numerous films after the war, including Rio Grande, Flying Leathernecks and many others.

Also, spoke ten languages.

Just blown away when I read about his service.

 

John

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In Rio Grande

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Here is the description of one of his two Navy Crosses-

 

Navy Cross Citation

 

The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Major Pierre (Peter) J. Ortiz (MCSN: 0-12779), United States Marine Corps Reserve, for extraordinary heroism while attached to the United States Naval Command, Office of Strategic Services, London, England, in connection with military operations against an armed enemy in enemy-occupied territory, from 8 January to 20 May 1944. Operating in civilian clothes and aware that he would be subject to execution in the event of his capture, Major Ortiz parachuted from an airplane with two other officers of an Inter-Allied mission to reorganize existing Marquis groups in the region of Rhone. By his tact, resourcefulness and leadership, he was largely instrumental in affecting the acceptance of the mission by local resistance leaders, and also in organizing parachute operations for the delivery of arms, ammunition and equipment for use by the Marquis in his region. Although his identity had become known to the Gestapo with the resultant increase in personal hazard, he voluntarily conducted to the Spanish border four Royal Air Force officers who had been shot down in his region, and later returned to resume his duties. Repeatedly leading successful raids during the period of this assignment, Major Ortiz inflicted heavy casualties on enemy forces greatly superior in number, with small losses to his own forces. By his heroic leadership and astuteness in planning and executing these hazardous forays, Major Ortiz served as an inspiration to his subordinates and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

I don't know how I forgot this, but Richard Todd played in another D-Day movie, the 1956 D-Day the Sixth of June, in this one he played a fictional character Lieutenant Colonel John Wynter, seconded from one of the Battalions of the Somerset Light Infantry to the Commandos,, in real life Todd actually served in the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry before joining the Paratroopers.

 

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And was finally able to find a service photo of Todd during the war no doubt before Overlord, quite the dashing Subaltern yes.

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  • 2 months later...
Salvage Sailor
On 10/6/2019 at 12:30 PM, SGT CHIP SAUNDERS said:

I BELIEVE Douglas Fairbanks was in the Navy on the Murmansk supply convoys,

 

James Arness ( Mr. Dillon) was wounded at Salerno.

 

James Arness -  3rd Infantry Division, Anzio

 

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General Apathy

This is quite the weirdest of lives if you read the Wikipedia of him . . . . . .  Anthony Faramus

 

During WWII he was imprisoned by the Germans on the Island of Jersey, he was moved to another prison in Paris and finally to Buchenwald Concentration Camp.  Post war he became an actor and then played a POW in the 1955 war-film ' The Colditz story '.

 

If the link doesn't become live once posted please ' copy-cut-paste ' into your browser

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Faramus

 

. lewis

 

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BILL THE PATCH

Wayne Morris, not sure if he is mentioned, so......While filming Flight Angels (1940), Morris became interested in flying and became a pilot. With war in the wind, he joined the Naval Reserve and became a Navy flier in 1942, leaving his film career behind for the duration of the war. He flew the F6F Hellcat off the aircraft carrier USS Essex.

A December 15, 1944 Associated Press news story reported that Morris was "credited with 57 aerial sorties, shooting down seven Japanese Zeros, sinking an escort vessel and a flak gunboat and helping sink a submarine and damage a heavy cruiser and a mine layer."[4] He was awarded four Distinguished Flying Crosses and two Air Medals.

Morris was considered by the Navy as physically 'too big' to fly fighters. After being turned down several times as a fighter pilot, he went to his uncle-in-law, Cdr. David McCampbell, imploring him for the chance to fly fighters. Cdr. McCampbell said "Give me a letter." He flew with the VF-15 (Fighter Squadron 15), the famed "McCampbell Heroes."

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7 hours ago, BILL THE PATCH said:

Wayne Morris, not sure if he is mentioned, so......While filming Flight Angels (1940), Morris became interested in flying and became a pilot. With war in the wind, he joined the Naval Reserve and became a Navy flier in 1942, leaving his film career behind for the duration of the war. He flew the F6F Hellcat off the aircraft carrier USS Essex.




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Good one with Morris, he played a Navy Fighter Pilot in the 1949 Gary Cooper movie Task Force.

 

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Wonderful actor, Melvyn Douglas actually served in the Great War (running away to Canada and lying about his age) and in World War II. I've tried to find something about his WWI service, but not much available. He rose to the rank of Major in WWII and served in Burma.

 

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BILL THE PATCH

Check him out in Me Blandings builds his dream house with Cary grant. That's a great funny movie

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39 minutes ago, BILL THE PATCH said:

Check him out in Me Blandings builds his dream house with Cary grant. That's a great funny movie

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Great movie Bill! Too Many Husbands was another funny one with him. Classic :)

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17 hours ago, BILL THE PATCH said:

Check him out in Me Blandings builds his dream house with Cary grant. That's a great funny movie

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I got that on DVD, watch it often, I always get a kick out of his Madison Avenue salary, something in the order of $12,000 a year, and back then in 1948 that made him a very well off man, giving him in 2020 terms, $130,000 a year, "Give or Take" get it? "Give or Take" ! smile.png.52d6496a7eb835aa7a6400832886fdee.png

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Don Rickles

 

Rickles was enlisted in the United States Navy during WWII and served as seaman first class. He was sent to the Philipines where he operated 20mm guns aboard the motor torpedo boat USS Cyrene.

 

And Jimmy Stewart because the change in the Man in what I think is about 4 years is kind of shocking.

 

 

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