Larry Parks

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors
  1. Van Johnson, Dr Gillespie’s New Assistant, 1942.     MGM dropped Lew Ayres as Dr Kildare when he  announced he was a conscientious objector to WWII. The studio – and Lionel Barrymore’s Dr Gillespie – immediately started hunting a new assistant… from Dana Andrews, Rod Cameron,  Charles Drake, Cornel Wilde. And, ironically,  Larry Parks – a 50s’ blacklist victim, as much as poor Ayres was in the 40s. In all,  Johnson made four films as  Dr Red Adams to close the series – but the much trumpeted Dr Gillespie’s Lady Doctor never happened.
  2. Tom Neal, There’s Something About A Soldier, 1942.      Five GIs go to officer school. The action concentrated on two: Neal and Bruce Bennett. Audiences spent more time admiring Evelyn Keyes.
  3. Willard Parker, The Fighting Guardsman, 1945.   Parker had the flashier smile. Hence, the change of Baron François de Saint-Hermain, our hero of this mini French revolution, before the real thing. Not as the Baron, of course, but as Roland The Bandit! Sounds like a cartoon cat, but he’s based on Alexandre Dumas’ Les Compagnons de Jehu, 1857, the start of the start of Alexandre Dumas’ Saint-Hermine trilogy, Les Compagnons de Jehu, 1857, which pre-dated Zorro, Johnston McCulley’s similarly masked aristocrat hero by as many as 62 years!
  4. Gene Evans, The Steel Helmet, 1950.      “FIRST IMAGE ONTHE SCREEN is a dogface’s helmet WITH A BULLET HOLE IN IT,” growled the “tabloid phiolosopher” and WWI vet Samuel Fuller in his usual capitals. “The helmet rises slowly to reveal THE GRITTY, CIGAR-STOMPING FACE OF SERGEANT ZACK, A WWII VETERAN…”Naturally, everyone saw John Wayne as the Sarge. Except Sammy. He preferred the uknown Evans -and went ballistic when a Lippert Pictuers suit decided that due to his MncCarthy hearings, Parks was cheap and wortha lot of free publicity! Sammy liked the guy, felt bad for him. Just not enough to ruinhis movie.
  5. Robert Cummings, The First Time, 1951.       No, not that first time, but the result of the first, 21st or 101st time – the first baby!   The brand new parents were to be Parks and Barbara Hale. But on March 22, Parks admitted he had been a Communist.  He never named names. “Don’t present me with the choice,” he told the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, “of either being in contempt of this Committee and going to jail or forcing me to really crawl through the mud to be an informer.”
  6. Jimmy Durante, The Eddie Cantor Story, 1953.       Parks, who had played Al Jolson in The Jolson Story, 1946,  and Jolson Sings Again,  1949, was signed from Columbia by Warners to play Jolson one mo’ time. However, in 1951,   he was quizzed about belonging to a Communist cell.  He never named names. “Don’t present me with the choice,” he told the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, “of either being in contempt of this Committee and going to jail or forcing me to really crawl through the mud to be an informer.”   Jolson was replaced in the story by Durante as himself.

 

 Birth year: 1914Death year: 1975Other name: Casting Calls:  6