Douglas Kennedy

A towering actor with a formidable screen presence and a face seemingly carved from granite, Douglas Kennedy made his debut in 1940 before a World War II tour of duty kept him away from movies for much of the decade. When he returned, he became a fixture of rousing westerns, bleak film noirs, and hard-boiled detective tales, often portraying vicious outlaws or morally bankrupt lawmen. Though primarily a character actor, known for stealing scenes in such flagship studio efforts as the twist-filled Humphrey Bogart classic "Dark Passage," he occasionally landed lead roles in lower-budgeted affairs such as the winningly campy mad-scientist shocker "The Amazing Transparent Man."

He remains best known, however, for his depiction of an alien-possessed police officer in the archetypal atomic-age thriller "Invaders from Mars" and for his starring role in the rollicking '50s oater series "Steve Donovan, Western Marshal." Focused mainly on recurring television roles in the latter years of his career, he died of cancer while shooting on location for an episode of the picturesque police procedural "Hawaii Five-O." Even though his life was cut short at only 57, he left behind a legacy of nearly 200 indelible on-screen appearances.