Hero of the Month: Ben Weldon
When thinking of stocky, bald, pugnacious character actor Ben Weldon one does not think of someone who was an accomplished violinist, but that is one of the many contradictions that showed up throughout his career. Here’s another one, when he decided to become an actor he did not head for New York to work his way up to Broadway, instead he went to London. He quickly moved into film and secured regular work playing American thugs in such films as The Man From Chicago (1930), The Missing Rembrandt (1932) and The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935).
Returning to America, Weldon secured work playing similar characters in films like Kid Galahad (1937), The Saint in New York (1938) and All Through the Night (1941). So of course when you have played American gangsters for ten years in two different countries and you make your first serial you obviously get cast as the Arab sidekick for a costumed hero set in the Middle East, which is what Weldon played in Columbia’s The Desert Hawk (1944).
Probably Weldon’s best known role was as a thug teamed with Tom Fadden who pats down Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946), though that serial experience must have come in handy for when he was cast in Sinbad the Sailor (1947). He also made several appearances menacing The Bowery Boys in Mr. Hex (1946), Jinx Money (1948) and Spook Chasers (1957).
Most of his time in the fifties was spent being knocked around by George Reeves on The Adventures of Superman (1952-58), where he played a variety of jovial, brain dead crooks. He made so many appearances Weldon might as well of been a regular cast member. He did take time out from unsuccessfully robbing Metropolis to make another serial for Columbia, The Adventures of Captain Africa (1955), where he again played an Arab sidekick to another costumed hero , the better to match footage from his eleven year old production.
Weldon retired from acting in the sixties. He spent his golden years running his own business, making and selling candy popcorn.
