Hero of the Month: George Dolenz
Many actors come from overseas and develop a long career in film playing character parts that call for a little continental charm. George Dolenz emigrated from Italy in the 1920’s but didn’t really click with Hollywood until the 1940’s where he worked at Universal in Abbott and Costello’s In Society (1944) and Boris Karloff’s The Climax (1944). During this time he made his one serial, The Royal Mounted Rides Again (1945), playing Mountie Bill Kennedy’s sidekick, who helps clear the Mountie’s father from a false murder charge in a conspiracy to steal a secret gold mine.
Dolenz had a short stint at RKO where he was signed to be a leading man but only starred in Vendetta (1950). A free lance agent after that he went on to appear in Martin and Lewis’s Scared Stiff (1953), The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954), and A Bullet For Joey (1955). He then went on to star in the short lived TV show The Count of Monte Cristo, using the money from it to buy a restaurant so that his family could enjoy a more stable income than the one he was providing as a character actor.
His son George Michael Dolenz became an actor as well, changing his name first to Mickey Braddock, he starred in the TV show Circus Boy in the fifties, and then in the sixties as Mickey Dolenz he became part of the pop culture phenomena known as The Monkees. Mickey’s daughter Ami also went in to acting and was a regular on the TV version of Ferris Bueller.
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