Philip Coolidge

Philip Coolidge (August 5, 1908 – May 23, 1967) was an American stage, film, and television actor, who performed predominantly in supporting roles during a career that spanned over three decades, from 1930 to the late 1960s.

Early life Born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1908, Philip was the youngest of eight children of Mary (née Colt) and Sidney E. Coolidge, who was the treasurer for a local textile company and later the owner of a bleachery. The 1910 federal census documents that the Coolidge household included two live-in maids and a full-time cook, indications that Sydney's executive positions and income provided his family with an upper-class lifestyle.

Stage career Following his graduation from Milton, Philip worked initially in radio, serving as an announcer for a station in Boston. Soon, though, he chose another career path, one as a stage actor. In 1930 he made his debut with the Peabody Repertory Company in Boston, playing four different roles in the troupe's production of Romeo and Juliet. Over the next 26 years, even after he expanded his acting career into films and television, Coolidge continued to appear in a wide variety of stage productions, including many more on Broadway. He performed there in the 1940s in plays such as Suzanna and the Elders, In Time to Come, Jacobowsky and the Colonel, Barefoot Boy With Cheek, and The Traitor. The following year, in its October 15 review of The Gambler, the critic for Variety includes Coolidge among what he describes as the play's "unusually good" supporting cast, more specifically for the actor's portrayal of Commissioner Costa, "the practical but puzzled trial examiner". While Coolidge was repeatedly recognized as an accomplished theatre actor during his career, by the late 1940s he was also being contracted to direct major productions. For instance, in Washington, D.C., in 1948 he directed the comedy There Goes the Bride, which premiered May 10 that year at the National Theatre and starred Ilka Chase and Robert Alda.

Films When considering the length of Coolidge's acting career, which lasted nearly 40 years, his filmography appears to be rather modest in length, amounting to only 15 productions. English film historian and critic David Quinlan contends in his 1986 book The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Movie Character Actors that Coolidge was "considerably under-used by Hollywood", that the "Dark, lanky, stoop-shouldered American actor of hangdog aspect" was ultimately only a "visitor" to films when compared to his other work in stage and television productions.

By the late 1940s, Coolidge also began acting in feature films. His first film role, though uncredited on screen, is in the 1947 20th-Century Fox crime drama Boomerang starring Dana Andrews and Jane Wyatt. A few of his subsequent credited appearances include his portrayal of a self-protective small-town mayor in Inherit the Wind (1960), as Dr. Cross in North by Northwest (1959), and as Wilbur Peterson in It Happened to Jane (1959).

Television In 1958, in the TV Western Gunsmoke, he starred as "Harry Pope", a widower from the east who fled west after the loss of his wife and who was harassed by cowboys because he was different; ultimately he killed two cowboys as they killed him.

Rarely cast as a leading character, Coolidge plays the shopkeeper Throckmorton in the 1962 episode "A Piano in the House" on the classic science fiction series The Twilight Zone. He also portrays William Windom's butler, "Mr. Cooper", in the first season of the 1960s sitcom The Farmer's Daughter.

Personal life and death Coolidge, who never married, died at age 58 of lung cancer at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles in May 1967.

Filmography Year Title Role Notes1947 Boomerang Jim Crossman Uncredited1956 The Sharkfighters Lieutenant Commander Leonard Evans 1957 Slander Homer Crowley 1958 I Want to Live! Emmett Perkins 1959 The Mating Game Reverend Osgood 1959 It Happened to Jane Wilbur Peterson 1959 North by Northwest Dr. Cross 1959 The Tingler Oliver 'Ollie' Higgins 1960 The Bramble Bush Colin Eustis 1960 Because They're Young Mr. Rimer 1960 Inherit the Wind Mayor Jason Carter 1962 Bon Voyage! Passport Clerk Uncredited1965 The Greatest Story Ever Told Chuza 1965 The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming Mr. Porter 1968 Never a Dull Moment Fingers Felton Released posthumously (final film role)

Selected television roles Year Series Role Episode 1949 Suspense Mr. Mason Season 1 Pilot Episode: "Goodbye New York" 1951 Kraft Television Theatre Masterson Season 4 Episode 37: "A Seacoast in Bohemia" 1951 Schlitz Playhouse Season 1 Episode 2: "The Name is Bellingham" 1951 Schlitz Playhouse Season 1 Episode 12: "Dark Fleece" 1952 Lux Video Theatre Lieutenant Colonel Finley Season 2 Episode 48: "Brigadier" 1953 Lux Video Theatre Major Season 3 Episode 46: "The Corporal and the Lady" 1954 Producers' Showcase Bert Bentley Season 1 Episode 1: "Tonight at 8:30" (Segment: "Red Peppers") 1955 The Alcoa Hour Mr. Herbert Season 1 Episode 4: "Thunder in Washington" 1956 Lux Video Theatre Malloby Season 6 Episode 24: "Criminal Code" 1956 Playhouse 90 Season 1 Episode 12: "The Family Nobody Wanted" 1956 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Henri Tallendier Season 1 Episode 24: "The Perfect Murder" 1956 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Talbot Season 1 Episode 26: "Whodunit" 1956 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Lieutenant Brandt Season 1 Episode 37: "Decoy" 1956 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Bud Season 2 Episode 3: "Demortuis" 1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Sam Henderson Season 2 Episode 22: "The End of Indian Summer" 1957 The United States Steel Hour Mr. Clements Season 5 Episode 5: "The Locked Hour" 1958 Gunsmoke Harry Pope Season 4 Episode 12: "Grass" 1959 Have Gun - Will Travel Aaron Murdock Season 2 Episode 33: "Sons of Aaron Murdock " 1959 Tales of Wells Fargo Old John Season 4 Episode 11: "End of a Legend" 1959 Schlitz Playhouse Flaherty Season 8 Episode 15: "The Rumor" 1959 Alfred Hitchcock Presents William Tritt Season 4 Episode 33: "The Dusty Drawer" 1960 Playhouse 90 Albert Bigelow Paine Season 4 Episode 16: "The Shape of the River" 1961 The Play of the Week Grivet Season 2 Episode 25: "Thérèse Raquin" 1961 Route 66 Old Codger Season 2 Episode 7: "The Mud Nest" 1961 The Defenders Dr. Lillis Season 1 Episode 1: "The Quality of Mercy" 1962 Have Gun - Will Travel Dr. Leopold Avatar Season 5 Episode 19: "The Mark of Cain" 1962 The Alfred Hitchcock Hour "Reverend" Locke Season 1 Episode 3: "Night of the Owl" 1962 Gunsmoke Len Fetch Season 7 Episode 18: "Old Dan" 1962 The Twilight Zone Throckmorton Season 3 Episode 22: "A Piano in the House" 1962 Ichabod and Me Samuel Cheever Season 1 Episode 24: "Big Business" 1962 Ichabod and Me Cheever Season 1 Episode 28: "Election Fever" 1962 Target: The Corruptors Season 1 Episode 15: "A Man is Waiting to Be Murdered" 1963 McKeever and the Colonel Major Beadle Season 1 Episode 25: "Blackwell, the Retread" 1963 The Defenders Joe Lundeen Season 2 Episode 26: "The Heathen" 1963-1964 The Farmer's Daughter Chester Cooper 22 episodes 1965 Gunsmoke Owney Dales Season 10 Episode 18: "One Killer on Ice" 1965 Bewitched Mr. Trigby Season 2 Episode 6: "Take Two Aspirins and Half a Pint of Porpoise Milk" 1965 Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Frank Season 11 Episode 24: "Kilroy: Part 3" 1965 Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color Frank Season 11 Episode 25: "Kilroy: Part 4" 1966 The Tammy Grimes Show Abner Season 1 Episode 4: "Positively Made in Paris" 1966 ABC Stage 67 Farley Season 1 Episode 1: "The Love Song of Barney Kempinski"