Everett Sloane, the actor most known for playing Mr. Bernstein in 'Orson Welles' . Plagued with failing eye sight, a depressed Sloane quit acting and eventually took his life at the age of 55.
Apparent suicide with bartiturates in Brentwood because he was afraid he was going blind.
Wrote the lyrics to theme song of "The Andy Griffith Show" . However, they were not used in favor of whistling the theme song.
Shares his birthday with his Citizen Kane co-star George Coulouris.
Played Capt. Kennelly in episodes 1 - 109 and 135 of the CBS radio series 21st Precinct (1953 - 1956).
In a radio career running nearly 20 years, he became familiar as Sammy in the popular comedy serial "The Goldbergs" and played assorted villains on the "Crime Doctor" series.
Graduated from Townsend Harris Hall High School in New York. Briefly attended University of Pennsylvania but left in 1927 to join a stock company run by Jasper Deeter.
Directed only once -- a Broadway show entitled "The Dancer" in 1946. Produced by George Abbott , it ran only 5 performances.
In his film debut as Bernstein, the general manager of Kanes publishing interest in Citizen Kane , Sloane was required to age several decades.
Attended Manhattans Public School N. 46 where he played Puck in "A Midsummer Nights Dream" at age 7.
He and Rita Hayworth , who played his wife in the film, were memorialized in the glass-shattering mirror maze finale in the Orson Welles The Lady from Shanghai .
Married Lillian "Lovey" Herman (1912-1989) in 1933 and had two children, Nathaniel (Ned) and Erika.
Eldest of three children born to Jewish parents. Father Nathaniel Isadore Sloane was born in New York City was an insurance broker and cotton merchant. His mother, Rose Gerstein, was from Boston.
Made his professional debut in a Gerhart Hauptmann play at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village. With his short, red-haired, bespectacled, Harpo Marx-like presence, he initially did not receive impressive reviews.
During his salad days, he was a Wall Street stockbrokers "runner" working at $17 a week but progressed to assistant to the managing partner at $140 a week. The stock market crash ended that working avenue.
Relocating to Los Angeles in the early 50s after extensive Broadway work, Sloane tended to play distinguished, intelligent, hawkish-nosed types on film and TV -- military high rankers, crime bosses, business executives, physicians, justices, agents and managers.
According to Ken Dennis in-depth article on Sloane in Films of the Golden Age, #80, Spring 2015, Sloanes deep depression over his eyesight led him to disappear from his home on August 4, 1965, propelling his family to file a missing persons report. Sloane reportedly went to a drug store in the San Fernando Valley and purchased 25 barbiturate tablets. He returned home on the evening of August 6 and was found dead the following morning in his bedroom. He left two letters - according to the Pittsburgh Press, one letter to his wife and other to his manager.
His last work was on an episode of TVs "Honey West" starring Anne Francis. It was aired posthumously.
Received a Hollywood Walk of Fame honor on February 8, 1960, located at 6254 Hollywood Boulevard.
Despite his many collaborations with Orson Welles, who gave him his first film role, he walked off Welless film of "Othello", perhaps because there were so many delays during the filming. He had been cast as Iago, and was replaced by Micheal MacLiammoir. Welles never forgave him for this, and continued to make disparaging remarks about him even after his death.
I never got the idea of becoming an actor until I was two years old.
As a business proposition, radio is . . . sound and occasionally,satisfying. The theatre is ego-satisfying but otherwise unreliable. The,movies are . . . a lump of money. .
