John Houseman
Birthday: Born in 1902-09-22 in Bucharest, Romania
Deathday: 1988-10-31
John Houseman (September 22, 1902 – October 31, 1988) was a Romanian-born British-American actor and film producer who became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of Citizen Kane. He is perhaps best known for his role as Professor Charles Kingsfield in the 1973 film The Paper Chase for which he won a best supporting actor Oscar. He reprised his role as Kingsfield in the subsequent TV series adaptation of The Paper Chase. Houseman was also known for his commercials for the brokerage firm Smith Barney. He had a distinctive Mid-Atlantic English accent, in common with many actors of his generation. Description above from the Wikipedia article John Houseman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
TV Credits
The Bionic Woman
Character:
After fully recovering from her near fatal bout of bionic rejection, Jaime Sommers, the first female cyborg, is assigned to spy missions of her own....
227
Character:
A housewife sits on the stoop of her apartment building in a black neighborhood of Washington, D.C., and discusses all manner of things with her neighbors....
Lincoln
Character: Gen. Winfield Scott
"Lincoln" was a 1988 American television mini-series starring Sam Waterston as Abraham Lincoln, Mary Tyler Moore as Mary Todd Lincoln, and Richard Mulligan as William H. Seward. It was directed by Lamont Johnson and was based on Gore Vidal’s novel. It covers the time period running from Lincoln’s election as President of the United States to the time of his assassination. When released for home entertainment, the title was changed to "Gore Vidal's Lincoln" Lamont Johnson won an Emmy for directi...
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Character: Winston S. Churchill
Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The longest-running primetime series in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning during 1951 and continuing into 2013. From 1954 onward, all of its productions have been shown in color, although color television video productions were extremely rare in 1954. Many television movies have been shown on the program since its debut, ...
American Playhouse
Character:
American Playhouse is an anthology television series periodically broadcast by Public Broadcasting Service in the United States....
Noble House
Character:
Despite its impressive history and reputation, the international trading company Struan's is in trouble. Overextended by the previous management, new tai-pan Ian Dunross has had to issue public stock to improve the company's financial standing. Even this, however, has not given him the capital he needs. As a result, he is courting a private investor, American billionaire Linc Bartlett. Bartlett decides secretly to back Dunross' arch enemy, Quillian Gornt, who will stop at nothing to destroy Stru...
The Paper Chase
Character: Charles Kingsfield
Critically lauded drama about the life and pressures of a group of students at a prestigious Eastern law school, with a strict and domineering contract-law professor named Charles Kingsfield, who alternately inspires and terrifies the students....
The Winds of War
Character: Aaron Jastrow
Set against the backdrop of world events that led to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Victor "Pug" Henry is a career naval officer who, along with his family, learns to navigate the waters of his dangerous times in the late 1930s....
Washington: Behind Closed Doors
Character: Myron Dunn
CIA director Bill Martin knows that an incoming president means a new direction for the country—and another set of eyes on the top secret Primula Report. Martin tries to build a rapport with his new boss, but President Richard Monckton is more interested in settling old scores and cleaning house with the help of the FBI....
Captains and the Kings
Character: Judge Newell Chisholm
Rags-to-riches tale of an Irish immigrant in late 1800s based on the novel by Taylor Caldwell....
The American Film Institute Salute to ...
Character: Self
In 1973 the American Film Institute initiated its Life Achievement Award, to be presented to a yearly recipient whose talent has fundamentally advanced the film art; whose accomplishments have been acknowledged by scholars, critics, professional peers and the general public; and whose work has stood the test of time....
The French Atlantic Affair
Character: Dr. Archady Clemens
When the SS Festivale sets sail from New York to France, its 3,000 passengers include Pulitzer Prize-winning author Harold Columbine and 146 members of the Church of the Cosmic Path, led by Father Craig Dunleavy, their charismatic messiah. Seizing control of the ship, Dunleavy demands $70 million in gold, intending to kill everyone onboard once it's paid. Without knowing which passengers are cultists and warned that 12 will die for every hijacker harmed, Columbine and the captain search for a wa...
The Last Convertible
Character: Dr. Wetherell
A star-laden adaptation of Anton Myrer's sprawling 1978 novel tracing the lives of five Harvard roommates of the class of '44, following them through the next 30 years. At the center of the story is a green 1939 Packard convertible and Chris Farris, a beautiful Radcliffe girl....
Silver Spoons
Character: Grandpa Stratton
Silver Spoons is an American sitcom that aired on NBC from September 25, 1982 to May 11, 1986 and in first-run syndication from September 15, 1986 to March 4, 1987. The series was produced by Embassy Television for the first four seasons, until Embassy Communications moved the series to syndication. Silver Spoons was created by Martin Cohan, Howard Leeds and Ben Starr. The show's title refers to family wealth and to the expression that rich children are born with "silver spoons" in their mouths...
A.D.
Character: Gamaliel
A 12 hours miniseries adapted from Anthony Burgess's novel The Kingdom of the Wicked....
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Character: Chief Justice
Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The longest-running primetime series in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning during 1951 and continuing into 2013. From 1954 onward, all of its productions have been shown in color, although color television video productions were extremely rare in 1954. Many television movies have been shown on the program since its debut, ...
The Six Million Dollar Man
Character: Doctor Franklin
Follow the adventures of Steve Austin, cybernetically enhanced astronaut turned secret agent, employed by the OSI, under the command of Oscar Goldman and supervised by the scientist who created his cybernetics, Rudy Wells. Steve uses the superior strength and speed provided by his bionic arm and legs, and the enhanced vision provided by his artificial eye, to fight enemy agents, aliens, mad scientists, and a wide variety of other villains....
Aspen
Character: Joseph Merrill Drummond
This sprawling miniseries details the trial of Lee Bishop, an Aspen man who was arrested, tried, and sentenced to die for the rape and murder of a fifteen-year-old girl, a crime for which Bishop is not guilty. As the years pass, and Bishop sits on death row, his attorney, Tom Keating, does everything in his power to clear Bishop's name and find the true killer....
The Dick Cavett Show
Character: Self - Guest
The Dick Cavett Show has been the title of several talk shows hosted by Dick Cavett on various television networks....
The RKO Story: Tales From Hollywood
Character: Self
Ed Asner tells the story of RKO Pictures from the 1920s to the 1960s....
Marco Polo
Character: Patriarca di Aquileia
The life of the 13th-century Venetian explorer who sought to connect the civilizations of China and Europe through trade....
Great Performances
Character: Dr.Fawcett
The best in the performing arts from across America and around the world including a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries....
Great Performances
Character: Self
The best in the performing arts from across America and around the world including a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries....
The Adams Chronicles
Character: Justice Gridley
The Adams Chronicles is a thirteen-episode miniseries by PBS that aired in 1976 to commemorate the American Bicentennial....
Movie Credits
The Fog
Character: Mr. Machen
Strange things begin to occurs as a tiny California coastal town prepares to commemorate its centenary. Inanimate objects spring eerily to life; Rev. Malone stumbles upon a dark secret about the town's founding; radio announcer Stevie witnesses a mystical fire; and hitchhiker Elizabeth discovers the mutilated corpse of a fisherman. Then a mysterious iridescent fog descends upon the village, and more people start to die....
Another Woman
Character: Marion's Father
Marion is a woman who has learned to shield herself from her emotions. She rents an apartment to work undisturbed on her new book, but by some acoustic anomaly she can hear all that is said in the next apartment in which a psychiatrist holds his office. When she hears a young woman tell that she finds it harder and harder to bear her life, Marion starts to reflect on her own life. After a series of events she comes to understand how her unemotional attitude towards the people around her affected...
Rollerball
Character: Bartholomew
In a corporate-controlled future, an ultra-violent sport known as Rollerball represents the world, and one of its powerful athletes is out to defy those who want him out of the game....
Ghost Story
Character: Sears James
Four successful elderly gentlemen, members of the Chowder Society, share a gruesome, 50-year-old secret. When one of Edward Wanderley's twin sons dies in a bizarre accident, the group begins to see a pattern of frightening events developing....
Three Days of the Condor
Character: Mr. Wabash
A bookish CIA researcher finds all his co-workers dead, and must outwit those responsible until he figures out who he can really trust....
Wholly Moses
Character: The Archangel
Harvey and Zoey, two tourists in Israel, discover an ancient scroll about Herschel, the man who was almost Moses. Herschel receives the command from God to free his people from slavery, but Moses keeps getting all the credit....
Scrooged
Character: Self
Frank Cross is a wildly successful television executive whose cold ambition and curmudgeonly nature has driven away the love of his life. But after firing a staff member on Christmas Eve, Frank is visited by a series of ghosts who give him a chance to re-evaluate his actions and right the wrongs of his past....
The Cheap Detective
Character: Jasper Blubber
A spoof of the entire 1940s detective genre. San Francisco private detective, Lou Pekinpaugh is accused of murdering his partner at the instigation of his mistress—his partner's wife....
The Paper Chase
Character: Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.
A first-year law student struggles with balancing his coursework and his relationship with the daughter of a stern professor....
St. Ives
Character: Abner Procane
A dabbler-in-crime and his assistant hire an ex-police reporter to recover some stolen papers....
Gideon's Trumpet
Character: Chief Justice / Offscreen Narrator
True story of Clarence Gideon's fight to be appointed counsel at the expense of the state. This landmark case led to the Supreme Court's decision which extended this right to all criminal defendants....
A Christmas Without Snow
Character: Ephraim Adams
A divorced woman (Michael Learned) moves to San Francisco from Omaha with her young son. She's trying to re-build her life after her divorce, she leaves her son with his grandmother. She joins the choir of a local church. She has some issues with the choirmaster (John Houseman) who tries to get the choir into shape before the Christmas concert. The choir overcome some personal setbacks as they all deal with personal issues. Zoe (Michael Learned) thinks of quitting the choir all together when pus...
Murder by Phone
Character: Stanley Markowitz
A disgruntled phone company employee develops a device whereby those answering a phone can be murdered, and it's up to Nat Bridger to stop the killer....
Beyond the Horizon
Character: Dr. Fawcett
On a Connecticut farm, James Mayo's two sons both love Ruth Atkins. Robert, the younger son, is sickly and dreams of escaping to a romantic life somewhere "beyond the horizon." Andy is hard-working and steadfast and loves his brother deeply. When Ruth reveals that she loves Robert and not, as everyone believed, Andy, Robert's plans to go to sea with his uncle are disrupted. He decides to stay at home and marry Ruth, while Andy, unwilling to remain close at hand as his brother marries the girl he...
American: An Odyssey to 1947
Character: Self (archive footage)
In the early 1930s, Orson Welles ascends to unprecedented stardom while President Franklin Delano Roosevelt navigates a nation in crisis. As WWII begins, an American boy visits abroad, and an American soldier enlists in the army....
The Skin of Our Teeth
Character: Network Newscaster
Production of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer-winning play "The Skin of Our Teeth," the story of Mr. and Mrs. Antrobus, their children Henry and Gladys, and their maid Sabina. They are simultaneously a typical American family living in a present-day New Jersey suburb and are also Adam, Eve, Lilith, Cain and a daughter who survive the Ice Age (although their pet dinosaurs do not), the Flood (as in the book of Genesis in the Bible) and War (as in WWII)....
Too Much Johnson
Character: Duelist
This film was not intended to stand by itself, but was designed as the cinematic aspect of Welles' Mercury Theatre stage presentation of William Gillette's 1894 comedy about a New York playboy who flees from the violent husband of his mistress and borrows the identity of a plantation owner in Cuba who is expecting the arrival of a mail order bride. The film component of the performance was ultimately never screened due to the absence of projection facilities at the venue. Long-believed to be los...
I'm a Stranger Here Myself
Character: Self
A portrait of legendary filmmaker Nicholas Ray while he is working as a film professor at a college in upstate New York....
Seven Days in May
Character: Vice Adm. Farley C. Barnswell (uncredited)
A U.S. Army colonel alerts the president of a planned military coup against him....
Fear on Trial
Character: Mike Collins
The story of John Henry Faulk, a radio/TV personality of the 1950s, who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Faulk sued the organization that was behind the blacklisting, and the resultant trial, and Faulk's victory, helped to put an end to the blacklisting period....
The Displaced Person
Character: Father Flynn
A conscientious but driven Polish refugee disrupts the hierarchy of power on a Georgia farm in the 1940s....
The Babysitter
Character: Dr. Lindquist
Overprotective mother Liz Benedict meets 18-year-old orphan Joanna Redwine and hires her as house help and live-in companion to rambunctious daughter Tara. Liz's husband Jeff isn't too thrilled with the arrangement, and his fears soon prove justified when Joanna begins to manipulate everyone and to slowly destroy the family. Meanwhile, next-door neighbor Dr. Linquist investigates and discovers Joanna has a disturbing past....
Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind
Character: Self (archive footage)
A funny, intimate and heartbreaking portrait of one of the world’s most beloved and inventive comedians, Robin Williams, told largely through his own words. Celebrates what he brought to comedy and to the culture at large, from the wild days of late-1970s L.A. to his death in 2014....
Bright Lights, Big City
Character: Mr. Vogel
A disillusioned young writer living in New York City turns to drugs and drinking to block out the memories of his dead mother and estranged wife....
Writing: Plain & Fancy
Character: Narrator
A documentary about calligraphy....
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
Character: Driving Instructor (uncredited)
When the incompetent Lieutenant Frank Drebin seeks the ruthless killer of his partner, he stumbles upon an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II....
Six Characters in Search of An Author
Character: The Director
A rehearsal is disrupted when six figures mysteriously appear on the stage, claiming to be fictional characters from an unfinished play searching for an author to tell their tragic story. An adaptation of the classic Luigi Pirandello play, updated to take place in a 1970s television studio....
Old Boyfriends
Character: Dr. Hoffman
When her marriage falls apart, a psychiatrist seeks out those of her former boyfriends who left the biggest impact on her life, mostly in a bad way....
A Rose for Emily
Character: Narrator (voice)
Townsfolk discover a warped secret while clearing out the house of a recently deceased, aristocratic spinster....
Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles
Character: Self - Actor (archive footage)
The extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-85), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new trick to surprise his audience, a romantic and legendary figure who lived only for cinema....
The New Deal for Artists
Character:
The Arts Project of the Work Projects Administration (1935-1942) was a USA government agency established to support writers, theater people, painters, sculptors, and photographers....
My Bodyguard
Character: Dobbs
Clifford Peach, an easygoing teenager, is finding less than easy to fit in at his new high school, where a tough-talking bully terrorizes his classmates and extorts their lunch money. Refusing to pay up, Clifford enlist the aid of an overgrown misfit whose mere presence intimidates students and teachers alike. But their "business relationship" soon turns personal as Clifford and the troubled loner forge a winning alliance against their intimidators - and a very special friendship with each other...
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
Character: Self (archive footage)
Christopher Reeve portrayed the Man of Steel in four Superman films and played dozens of other roles that displayed his talent and range as an actor, before being injured in a near-fatal horse-riding accident in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down. After becoming a quadriplegic, he became a charismatic leader and activist in the quest to find a cure for spinal cord injuries, as well as a passionate advocate for disability rights and care....