Burgess Meredith, in full Oliver Burgess Meredith, (born November 16, 1907, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.—died September 9, 1997, Malibu, California), American actor and director who, in a career that spanned nearly seven decades, played a diverse range of characters on the stage, on television, and in film.
Meredith attended Amherst College however left earlier than graduating. He subsequently held a wide range of jobs—notably working as a reporter and a service provider seaman—earlier than pursuing an appearing profession. In 1929 he turned an unpaid apprentice with Eva Le Gallienne’s Civic Repertory Company in New York City. The following yr he made his Broadway debut in Romeo and Juliet, and he achieved nice success in 1935 as Mio within the Maxwell Anderson play Winterset. He reprised the function for the 1936 movie model, which was his first credited display screen look.
After notable stage performances in High Tor (1937) and Liliom (1940), he served as a captain within the U.S. Army Air Forces throughout World War II. He returned to appearing after the battle, in performs that included The Playboy of the Western World (1946–47), Major Barbara (1956–57), and I Was Dancing (1964). Meredith additionally directed various Broadway productions, notably A Thurber Carnival (1960), for which he obtained a particular Tony Award; James Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charlie (1964); and Ulysses in Nighttown (1974), for which he earned a Tony Award nomination.
During this time Meredith made quite a few movie appearances. He had memorable roles as George Milton in Of Mice and Men (1939), an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s basic novella, and as Ernie Pyle in The Story of G.I. Joe (1945). Meredith additionally wrote and starred in Jean Renoir’s The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946), a romantic drama that featured his third spouse, Paulette Goddard. His movie profession stalled within the Fifties, nonetheless, when his liberal views drew the ire of U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. His blacklisting eased along with his roles in a number of Otto Preminger movies, together with Advise & Consent (1962).