Parley Baer
From Alfred Hitchcock Wiki
- born: 05/Aug/1914 (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA)
- died: 22/Nov/2002 (Los Angeles, California, USA) - complications from a stroke
Biography
Parley Baer was an American character actor in film, television, and radio.
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Baer had a circus background, but began his radio career at Utah station KSL. With a fairly high pitched voice often accompanied by a Western twang, he became one of the busiest radio performers in the late 1940s and 1950s.
In 1952, he began playing Chester, the unofficial deputy to Marshal Matt Dillon on "Gunsmoke", eventually ad-libbing the character's full name, "Chester Wesley Proudfoot". Baer's portrayal of Chester was generally considered his finest and most memorable rôle and, as he often said, the one he found most fulfilling.
As an on-camera performer, he was recognizable by both his voice and his balding, paunchy appearance, often as fussy or obstinate officials or neighbors. Television roles included obnoxious Mayor Stoner on "The Andy Griffith Show", neighbor Darby on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet", frequent guest appearances on "The Addams Family" as insurance man Arthur J. Henson, and in later years, Miles Dugan on "The Young and the Restless" in the late 1990s. Film roles included parts in several live action Disney features, including "Follow Me, Boys!" (again as a mayor), "The Ugly Dachshund", and "Those Calloways", and "Dave" (as the Senate majority leader).
He also voiced Ernie Keebler in the cookie commercials before suffering a stroke in 1997 which affected both speech and movement. He recovered sufficiently to make a handful of appearances at old-time radio conventions and a guest appearance on "Star Trek: Voyager" before finally passing away from related complications in 2002, at the age of 88.
Filmography
With Hitchcock...
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Help Wanted (01/Apr/1956) - cast: Police Detective Gryar