Date of Birth : Jan 15th 1913
Emmy Award-nominated American actor. Bridges starred in popular television series, and appeared in more than 150 films.
Bridges made his Broadway debut in 1939 in a production of Shakespeare’s Othello. In 1941, he joined the stock company at Columbia Pictures, where he played small roles in features and short subjects. (In Here Comes Mr. Jordan Bridges is the clerk assisting Claude Rains in the “heaven” scene.) He left Columbia to enlist in the U.S. Coast Guard. Following World War II, he returned to film acting. He was blacklisted briefly in the 1950s after he admitted to the House Un-American Activities Committee that he had once been a member of the Actors’ Lab, a group with links to the Communist Party. He resumed working after being cleared by the FBI, finding his greatest success in television.
Bridges gained wide recognition as Mike Nelson, the main character in the television series Sea Hunt, created by Ivan Tors, which ran in syndication from 1958-1961. Following that success, he starred in the eponymous CBS anthology The Lloyd Bridges Show (1962-1963, produced by Aaron Spelling), which included appearances by his sons Beau and Jeff. Producer Gene Roddenberry, who worked with Bridges on “Sea Hunt”, reportedly offered Bridges the role of Captain Kirk on Star Trek before the part went to William Shatner. Additionally, he was a regular cast member in the Rod Serling western series The Loner (which lasted one season from 1965 to 1966), and in the two NBC failures San Francisco International Airport (1970/71) and Joe Forrester (1975-76). Later, he appeared in Paper Dolls (1984) and Capital News (1990), both for ABC, and again with Harts of the West (1993-1994), this time for CBS, a comedy/western set on a dude ranch in Nevada. Son Beau Bridges co-starred, along with Harley Jane Kozak as Beau’s wife, Alison Hart, and Sean Murray as the oldest Hart son, Zane Grey Hart.
CAREER
Blown Away ( 1994 )
Hot Shots! Part Deux ( 1993 )
Honey I blew up the Kid ( 1993 )
Hot Shots! ( 1991 )
Airplane II: The Sequel ( 1983 )
Airplane! ( 1980 )