Vince Edwards

Vince Edwards (born Vincent Edward Zoine; July 9, 1928 – March 11, 1996) was an American actor, director, and singer. He was best known for his TV role as Dr. Ben Casey and as Major Cliff Bricker in the 1968 war film The Devil's Brigade.

Early life

Edwards was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York City, New York, to Julia and Vincento Zoine, an Italian-American bricklayer.

While in college he was involved in theater productions. Around this time he became friends with character actor Nick Dennis, who introduced him to Marlon Brando; Dennis was then appearing alongside Brando in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire. In 1951, he signed a contract with Paramount Pictures, making his film debut as Vincent Edwards that year in Mister Universe. The following year he played the lead role in Hiawatha. Although he had major roles in several films, including the film noirs The Killing (1956) and Murder by Contract (1958), it was not until he was cast as the title character of the medical drama Ben Casey that he achieved stardom.

Edwards was discovered for the role by entertainer Bing Crosby, whose production company made the series. to a dozen He used the show's popularity to launch a recording career, releasing six albums. In a 1988 Associated Press interview, Edwards recalled the suddenness of his rise to fame: "I went from obscurity to fame."

Writing in his own newspaper column in 1962, Edwards described the years before his Ben Casey breakthrough as "pounding away at the Door of Opportunity for some 12 years" before it finally opened, and noted that columnists had already begun describing his interpretation of the character as surly, moody, sullen, irascible, explosive, and testy.

Post-Ben Casey film and television work When the Ben Casey television series ended, Edwards returned to acting in motion pictures with a major role in the 1968 war drama The Devil's Brigade, together with films such as Hammerhead (1968), The Desperados (1969), and The Mad Bomber (1973). and while filming Hammerhead on location in Lisbon, Portugal, he was hospitalized for several days in October 1967 after slipping and breaking a bone in his heel.

In 1970, Edwards starred in another TV series, the short-lived Matt Lincoln, in which he played a psychiatrist running an inner-city telephone counseling hotline for troubled teenagers. it premiered on ABC's Movie of the Week anthology on December 8, 1973, and was Edwards's first directing assignment on a television film, following his episodic Ben Casey work in the mid-1960s.

He directed a number of episodes in a variety of television series including the original Battlestar Galactica, namely the two-part episode "The Living Legend" on the original series and the two-part "The Super Scouts" on its 1980 sequel series, Galactica 1980.

Voice work and later roles He was also the voice of Jake Rockwell in the 1986 animated series Centurions, appearing in all 65 episodes, and provided additional voices for 13 episodes of the animated It's Punky Brewster (1985).

During his acting career, Edwards ventured occasionally into the recording studio, and a number of singles were released in his name. The most historically notable was never issued: Edwards is reported to have recorded "The Wonder of You" in 1958, before Ray Peterson's better-known 1959 version, which became an international hit and was later popularized by Elvis Presley; Edwards's recording has never surfaced.

Personal life

Marriages and family Edwards married four times. His first marriage, to actress Kathy Kersh, lasted from 1965 to October 1965 and produced one daughter. In March 1967, Edwards sought to have Kersh held in contempt of court, alleging in a filing that she had made it inconvenient for him to exercise his court-ordered visitation rights; he was awarded the right to see their daughter twice weekly following a hearing.

He next married Linda Foster, a British-born actress who had emigrated to the United States from Lancaster, England, in 1960. The marriage produced two daughters, Angela and Nicole; Foster filed for divorce in August 1972. Edwards married Cassandra Edwards in 1980, and they later divorced. His fourth and final marriage, to Janet Friedman, took place in 1994 and lasted until his death.

Edwards was survived by his widow, his brother, and three daughters from his earlier marriages.

Death

Edwards died of pancreatic cancer in Los Angeles, California, on March 11, 1996. He was buried at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Selected filmography

1951 Mister Universe as Tommy Tomkins (as Vincent Edwards) 1952 Sailor Beware as Blayden (as Vincent Edwards) 1952 Hiawatha as Hiawatha (as Vincent Edwards) 1954 Rogue Cop as Joey Langley 1955 Cell 2455, Death Row as Hamilton 1955 The Night Holds Terror as Victor Gosset 1956 Private's Progress as German Officer (uncredited) 1956 Serenade as Marco Roselli 1956 The Killing as Val Cannon 1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents (Season 3 Episode 9: "The Young One") as Tex 1957 Hit and Run as Frank 1957 The Three Faces of Eve as Army Sergeant (uncredited) 1957 The Hired Gun as Kell Beldon 1957 Ride Out for Revenge as Chief Little Wolf 1958 Island Women as Mike 1958 Murder by Contract as Claude 1959 City of Fear as Vince Ryker 1959 The Scavengers as Stuart Allison 1961 Too Late Blues as Tommy Sheehan (as Vincent Edwards) 1961 The Outsider as George 1963 The Victors as Private George Baker (as Vincent Edwards) 1968 Hammerhead as Charles Hood 1968 The Devil's Brigade as Major Cliff Bricker 1969 The Desperados as David Galt 1970 Sole Survivor as Major Michael Devlin 1971 Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate as Computer catfisher 1973 The Mad Bomber as Lieutenant Geronimo Minneli 1977 The Rhinemann Exchange (TV Movie) as General Swanson 1978 Evening in Byzantium (TV Movie) as Bret Easton 1982 The Seduction as Maxwell 1983 Space Raiders as "Hawk" 1983 Deal of the Century as Frank Stryker 1985 The Fix as Frank Lane 1985 Tales from the Darkside as Henry Gropper - "It All Comes Out in the Wash" episode 1986 Sno-Line as Steve King 1987 Return to Horror High as Richard Birnbaum 1987 The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission (TV Movie) as Sergeant Holt 1988 Cellar Dweller as Norman Meshelski 1991 Son of Darkness: To Die for II as Police Honcho 1991 Motorama as Doctor 1993 King B: A Life in the Movies as Himself 1995 The Fear as Uncle Pete (final film role)