Hugh Marlowe

A former radio announcer and stage performer whose somber appearance and grave delivery lent portentousness to such sci-fi film classics as "The Day the Earth Stood" and "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers," Hugh Marlowe, perhaps more than any character actor from the era, was the archetype of 1950s solemnity. Born the comically alliterative Hugh Herbert Hipple in Philadelphia, the actor changed his name to the weightier Hugh Marlowe after beginning his stage career at Los Angeles' Pasadena Playhouse. After a brief stint in radio during the 1930s, Marlowe earned his first supporting roles as a contract player for 20th Century Fox. He was often cast as a humorless foil to leading men of the day, most notably opposite a jocular Carey Grant in the Howard Hawks-directed screwball comedy "Monkey Business" (1952).

But his most memorable film contributions were in the sci-fi genre: on the groundbreaking 1951 film "The Day the Earth Stood Still," the oft-spoofed 1956 B-film "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers," and the big-budget cinemascope extravaganza "World Without End" (1956). In coming decades, Marlowe gained steady work on TV, appearing in his final role, as Matthews family patriarch Jim, on the daytime soap "Another World," from 1969 until his death in 1982.