Rod Cameron | |
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 Cameron as Rod Blake inState Trooper, 1957. | |
| Born | Nathan Roderick Cox (1910-12-07)December 7, 1910 |
| Died | December 21, 1983(1983-12-21) (aged 73) Gainesville, Georgia, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1939–1978 |
| Spouses |
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| Children | 3 |
Rod Cameron (bornNathan Roderick Cox; December 7, 1910 – December 21, 1983) was a Canadian film and television actor whose career extended from the 1930s to the 1970s. He appeared inhorror,war,action andscience fiction movies, but is best remembered for his manyWesterns.[1]
Cameron was born inCalgary,Alberta, Canada, and grew up in New Jersey.[2] He played on his high school basketball team and on a semi-professional football team. Despite those activities and others such as swimming and playing ice hockey, he couldn't join theRoyal Canadian Mounted Police in Canada as a young man because he failed the physical examination. Cameron moved toLos Angeles in the 1930s to work as asandhog on theMetropolitan Water tunnels.[3]
Cameron started out as a stuntman and was a body double forBuck Jones.[2][3] He became a bit player forParamount Pictures as well as astand-in forFred MacMurray.[4] His early films includeHeritage of the Desert withDonald Woods andRussell Hayden,Rangers of Fortune withFred MacMurray,North West Mounted Police andHenry Aldrich for President withJimmy Lydon. He also played bit roles atUniversal Pictures, including inIf I Had My Way, starringBing Crosby andGloria Jean. He appeared in a horror filmThe Monster and the Girl and playedJesse James inThe Remarkable Andrew for Paramount.
In 1943, Cameron gained star status in action serials forRepublic Pictures. As crime-busting federal agent Rex Bennett, Cameron battled enemy terrorists in 15 weekly episodes ofG-Men vs. the Black Dragon.[5] He was already working in another serial when audience reaction toBlack Dragon made him a hit. He appeared in another Rex Bennett adventure,Secret Service in Darkest Africa, with Cameron again battling against Axis agents.
When cowboy starJohnny Mack Brown left Universal Pictures forMonogram Pictures, Cameron replaced him as Universal's Western series star. Universal soon gave him straight character roles in feature films, includingSalome, Where She Danced andRiver Lady both co-starring fellow CanadianYvonne De Carlo.
During World War II Cameron played inCommandos Strike at Dawn and played aUS Marine inWake Island (1942) andGung Ho! (1943).
Universal reorganized as Universal-International and downsized its activities in 1947, leaving Cameron and other contract players unemployed. He was hired byMonogram Pictures for a long string of outdoor action pictures. In 1948, he starred inPanhandle (a movie with a script co-written byBlake Edwards) for Allied Artists.
In 1949, Cameron appeared withBonita Granville in the comedy filmStrike It Rich. He then appeared in many Westerns and other films forRepublic Pictures includingSanta Fe Passage (1955), and laterThe Gun Hawk (1963),Requiem for a Gunfighter (1965) andThe Bounty Killer (1965).
Cameron traveled to Europe in 1964 to play the lead inSpaghetti Westerns such asBullets Don't Argue (1964) andBullet in the Flesh (1965). He later appeared in such films asThe Last Movie (1971),Evel Knievel (1971) andPsychic Killer (1975).
Cameron starred in threesyndicatedtelevision series:City Detective (1953–1955),State Trooper (1956–1959), and theCoronado 9 (1960–1961). InCity Detective, Cameron appeared as the tough New York City police Lieutenant Bart Grant.[6] InState Trooper, a 1950s-styleWestern-themedcrime drama, Cameron starred as Lieutenant Rod Blake of theNevada State Police. InCoronado 9, set in theSan Diego area, Cameron appeared as Dan Adams, aprivate detective.
Hal Erickson, in his book,Syndicated Television: The First Forty Years, 1947–1987, cited Cameron's business sense in confining his work in TV series to syndication: "A canny businessman, Cameron knew that hisCity Detective residuals wouldn't have been as fat had a major television network been claiming a percentage of the action, and as a result the actor vowed to remain in syndication for the rest of his TV career. By 1960, Cameron was drawing over $200,000 per annum in residuals [from his three syndicated programs]..."[6]
Cameron himself guest starred in many Westerns, including six appearances onNBC'sLaramie, withJohn Smith andRobert Fuller. In "Drifter's Gold" (November 29, 1960), Cameron plays Tom Bedloe, an outlaw who has started the rumor of a nearby gold strike. When series lead Slim Sherman, played by John Smith, comes toLaramie to buy supplies, he finds the town nearly deserted and must pretend to be an outlaw to survive. Meanwhile, Bedloe is looking for Marcie Benson, the daughter he has never seen, played byJudi Meredith.Gregory Walcott plays Duke, Bedloe's partner in crime.[7]
In anotherLaramie episode, "Broken Honor" (April 9, 1963), Cameron andPeggy McCay portray Roy and Martha Halloran, a farm couple who stumbles upon $30,000 in money found inside a strong box on their property. The loot had been seized in a stagecoach heist and hidden away for later retrieval. Roy, who is reliant on a wheelchair, insists on keeping the money until Jess Harper arrives amid grave danger to all of their lives from the bandits searching about for the missing money. One of the bandits is played byDon "Red" Barry, best remembered from the 1940 filmAdventures of Red Ryder. Cameron also guest starred in the NBC's WesternBonanza in 1966: he portrayed Curtis Wade in the two-part episode "Ride The Wind". Cameron also guest starred in season 6 episode 18 of Western TV series "The Tales of Wells Fargo".
Cameron guest starred in such dramatic series asCrossroads, in which he portrayed Dr. Ervin Seale in the 1956 episode "Deadly Fear." He guest starred too onCBS'sPerry Mason, withRaymond Burr, as defendant Grover Johnson in the 1963 episode, "The Case of the Bouncing Boomerang." He continued to work in motion pictures and television into the 1970s. He appeared in season 2 ofJames Garner's NBC detective series,The Rockford Files. Cameron also appeared in two episodes of ADAM-12 in 1975.
Cameron's Western persona was popular enough that it attracted a comic book deal withFawcett Publications.[8] TheRod Cameron Western series ran from February 1950 to April 1953, ending with issue No. 20.[9] As seen in issue No. 17 (Oct. 1952), the comic book featured two Rod Cameron stories, plus a one page humorous strip featuring the character Ambling Andy, and a story featuring Sam the Sheriff.[10]
Cameron was married three times.[8] He married his second wife, Angela Alves-Lico, in 1950.[11] They divorced in 1960 so that he could marry her mother, actress Dorothy Alves-Lico (née Dorothy Eveleigh),[4] though they kept the marriage a secret until 1961.[8] DirectorWilliam Witney publicly acclaimed Cameron as the bravest man that he had ever seen.[12]
In the 1970s, Cameron became involved with efforts to treat alcoholism. He was active in the Alcoholism Council of San Fernando Valley in Van Nuys, California, and he spoke to groups about problems related to alcoholism.[13]
In his later years, he lived on Lake Lanier in northernGeorgia. After an extended battle with cancer, Cameron died in a hospital innearbyGainesville, aged 73.[14][15]
He wasposthumously awarded a star on theHollywood Walk of Fame.
Cameron was married three times. After his second marriage in 1950, he bought a home in Hollywood… has a grown daughter by his first marriage… He returned to Alberta with his wife in June 1959… In I960, he fuelled the Hollywood gossip factory by divorcing his second wife and marrying her mother, who was a few years older than he. They kept the marriage secret for more than a year… He was also the star of his own comic book.
Film star Rod Cameron, who has separated from his wife, Portuguese beauty Angela Alves-Lico (above), has developed his own version of the "going home to mother" routine.
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