Paul Birch
Birthday: Born in 1912-01-13 in Atmore, Alabama, USA
Deathday: 1969-05-24
Paul Birch (born January 13, 1912, Atmore, Alabama – died May 24, 1969, St. George's, Grenada) was an American actor of stage and film. Birch was born Paul Smith in Atmore, Alabama. He was a veteran of 39 movies, 50 stage dramas and a number of television shows including the Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951). In the late 1950s he starred, along with William Campbell, in the syndicated Canadian series Cannonball (1958), a half-hour drama/adventure show about truckers. He was the original "Marlboro Man" in TV commercials and played both Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee in several historical plays. He started out as the first of the original members of the Pasadena Playhouse and his stage work included The Caine Mutiny. He also had a recurring role as Captain Carpenter, the boss of Lt. Phillip Gerard in The Fugitive starring David Janssen. He starred in some low-budget science-fiction films in the 1950s, including The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955), Day the World Ended (1955), Not of This Earth (1957) and the cult classic Queen of Outer Space (1958). Birch also had small roles in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1967). Description above from the Wikipedia article Paul Birch, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
TV Credits
77 Sunset Strip
Character:
Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer are the wisecracking, womanizing private-detective heroes of this Warner Brothers drama. They work out of an office located at 77 Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, California, right next door to a snazzy restaurant where Kookie works as a valet. The finger-snapping, slang-talking Kookie occasionally helps Stu and Jeff with their cases, and eventually becomes a full-fledged member of the detective agency. Rex Randolph and J.R. Hale also join the firm, and Suzanne is their l...
Cheyenne
Character:
Cheyenne Bodie was a big man, a former army scout who went west after the American Civil War and drifted from job to job, here a cowboy, there a lawman, and always a larger-than-life hero. CHEYENNE is an American western television series of 108 black-and-white episodes broadcast on ABC from 1955 to 1963. The show was the first hour-long western, and in fact the first hour-long dramatic series of any kind, with continuing characters, to last more than one season. It was also the first series to...
Cain's Hundred
Character: Sheriff Rainey
A former underworld lawyer goes to work for the Federal Government, determined to bring 100 top criminals to justice....
Trackdown
Character:
Trackdown is an American Western television series starring Robert Culp that aired on CBS between 1957 and 1959. More than seventy episodes of this series were produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television and filmed at the Desilu-Culver Studio. The series was itself a spin-off of Powell's anthology series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater....
Gunsmoke
Character: Boss
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television....
Arrest and Trial
Character:
Arrest and Trial is a 90-minute American crime/legal drama series that ran during the 1963-1964 season on ABC, airing Sundays from 8:30-10 p.m. Eastern....
Perry Mason
Character: Security Officer Frank Crawford
The cases of master criminal defense attorney Perry Mason and his staff who handled the most difficult of cases in the aid of the innocent....
Studio One
Character: Big George
An American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. Studio One, presented by Westinghouse, was one of the first of the anthology TV programs. The episodes were often abridged remakes of movies from years gone by and many future well-known television and movie actors appeared in the productions....
Hawaiian Eye
Character:
Private Eyes Tom Lopaka and Tracy Steele are based out of Hawaiian Village Resort where they work both hotel security and are hired by others to look into various matters. They're helped by their trusty right-hand man Kazuo Kim who runs a taxi company and is always eager to help them....
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Character: Secretary of Agriculture
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, ...
Sea Hunt
Character:
Sea Hunt is an American adventure television series that aired in syndication from 1958 to 1961 and was popular in syndication for decades afterwards. The series originally aired for four seasons, with 155 episodes produced. It stars Lloyd Bridges as ex-Navy frogman Mike Nelson, and was produced by Ivan Tors....
The Tall Man
Character:
The Tall Man is a half-hour American western television series about Sheriff Pat Garrett and the gunfighter Billy the Kid that aired seventy-five episodes on NBC from 1960 to 1962, filmed by Revue Productions....
Sam Benedict
Character:
Sam Benedict is an American legal drama that aired on NBC from September 1962 to March 1963. The series was created and executive produced by E. Jack Neuman. Sam Benedict is based on real-life lawyer Jacob W. "Jake" Erlich, who served as technical consultant for the series....
Have Gun, Will Travel
Character:
Have Gun – Will Travel is an American Western television series that aired on CBS from 1957 through 1963. It was rated number three or number four in the Nielsen ratings every year of its first four seasons. It was one of the few television shows to spawn a successful radio version. The radio series debuted November 23, 1958. The television show is presently shown on the Encore-Western channel. Have Gun – Will Travel was created by Sam Rolfe and Herb Meadow and produced by Frank Pierson, Don I...
The Fugitive
Character: Police Captain Carpenter
Richard Kimble is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death penalty. En route to death row, Kimble's train derails and crashes, allowing him to escape and begin a cross-country search for the real killer, a "one-armed man". At the same time, Dr. Kimble is hounded by the authorities, most notably dogged by Police Lieutenant Philip Gerard....
Cannonball
Character: "Cannonball" Mike Malone
Followed the adventures of Mike Malone and Jerry Austin as they drove trucks across the US and Canada for the fictitious C&A Transport Company Ltd. "Cannonball" was a half-hour family drama featuring truckers Mike Malone and Jerry Austin hauling freight across Canada and the U.S.A. Paul Birch and William Campbell portrayed the main characters, with Canadian actors Beth Lockerbie, Beth Morris, Steve Barringer, Howard Milsom, and others in supporting roles....
I Led Three Lives
Character:
I Led Three Lives is an American drama series which was syndicated by Ziv Television Programs from October 1, 1953 to January 1, 1956. The series stars Richard Carlson. The show was a companion piece of sorts to the radio drama I Was a Communist for the FBI, which dealt with a similar subject and was also syndicated by Ziv from 1952 to 1954....
The Virginian
Character: Sheriff Halsey
The Shiloh Ranch in Wyoming Territory of the 1890s is owned in sequence by Judge Henry Garth, the Grainger brothers, and Colonel Alan MacKenzie. It is the setting for a variety of stories, many more based on character and relationships than the usual western....
M Squad
Character: Police Lt. Ruddy
Lt. Frank Ballinger is a no-nonsense plain clothes cop in the elite M Squad Division. The Squad's task is to root out organised crime and corruption in America's Second City, Chicago....
Bronco
Character:
Bronco is a Western series on ABC from 1958 through 1962. It was shown by the BBC in the United Kingdom. The program starred Ty Hardin as Bronco Layne, a former Confederate officer who wandered the Old West, meeting such well-known individuals as Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Theodore Roosevelt, Belle Starr, Cole Younger, and John Wesley Hardin....
The 20th Century Fox Hour
Character:
The 20th Century Fox Hour is an American drama anthology series televised in the United States on CBS from 1955 to 1957. Some of the shows in this series were restored, remastered and shown on the Fox Movie Channel in 2002 under the title Hour of Stars. The season one episode Overnight Haul, starring Richard Conte and Lizabeth Scott, was released in Australia as a feature film....
You Are There
Character:
You Are There is an American historical educational television and radio series broadcast over the CBS Radio and CBS Television networks....
The Alaskans
Character:
The Alaskans is a 1959-1960 ABC/Warner Brothers western television series set during the late 1890s in the port of Skagway, Alaska. The show features Roger Moore as "Silky Harris" and Jeff York as "Reno McKee", a pair of adventurers intent on swindling travelers bound for the Yukon Territories during the height of the Klondike Gold Rush. Their plans are inevitably complicated by the presence of singer "Rocky Shaw", "an entertainer with a taste for the finer things in life". The show was the fir...
Black Saddle
Character: Mr. Simpson
Black Saddle is an American Western television series starring Peter Breck that aired 44 episodes on ABC from January 10, 1959 to May 6, 1960. The half-hour program was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television, and the original pilot was an episode of CBS's Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, with Chris Alcaide portraying the principal character, Clay Culhane. For syndicated reruns, Black Saddle was combined with three other Western series from the same company, Law of the Plainsman starring...
Sugarfoot
Character: Emmett Clark
Sugarfoot is an American western television series that aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961. The series stars Will Hutchins as Tom Brewster, an Easterner who comes to the Oklahoma Territory to become a lawyer. Jack Elam is cast in occasional episodes as sidekick Toothy Thompson. Brewster was a correspondence-school student whose apparent lack of cowboy skills earned him the nickname "Sugarfoot", a designation even below that of a tenderfoot....
Riverboat
Character: Sergeant Major Carmody
Riverboat is a 44-episode western television series starring Darren McGavin and Burt Reynolds broadcast on the NBC television network from September 13, 1959 until January 2, 1961. It was produced by Revue Studios....
The Texan
Character:
The Texan was a Western television series starring popular B movie actor Rory Calhoun, which aired on the CBS television network from 1958 to 1960....
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
Character: Sheriff Cutler
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, sometimes simply called Zane Grey Theatre, is an American Western anthology series which ran on CBS from 1956 to 1961....
Death Valley Days
Character: Mike Walsh
Death Valley Days is an American radio and television anthology series featuring true stories of the old American West, particularly the Death Valley area. Created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman, the program was broadcast on radio until 1945 and continued from 1952 to 1970 as a syndicated television series, with reruns continuing through August 1, 1975. The series was sponsored by the Pacific Coast Borax Company and hosted by Stanley Andrews, Ronald Reagan, Robert Taylor, and Dale Robertson. With the ...
Tightrope
Character:
Tightrope is an American crime drama series that aired on CBS from September 1959 to September 1960, under the alternate sponsorship of the J.B. Williams Company, and American Tobacco. Produced by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene in association with Screen Gems, the series stars Mike Connors as an undercover agent named "Nick" who was assigned to infiltrate criminal gangs. The show was to have originally been titled Undercover Man but it was changed before going to air....
Telephone Time
Character:
Telephone Time is an American anthology drama series that aired on CBS in 1956, and on ABC from 1957 to 1958. The series features plays by John Nesbitt who hosted the first season. Frank C. Baxter hosted the 1957 and 1958 seasons. The program was directed by Arthur Hiller....
Panic!
Character:
...
Hopalong Cassidy
Character:
Hopalong Cassidy was television's first western program. The series aired on NBC and stared William Boyd as the cowboy Hopalong Cassidy....
Maverick
Character:
The Maverick boys - Bret, Bart, Beau and Brent - are a clan of well-dressed dandies, gamblers who'd much rather make their money playing cards than messing up their fine clothing with actual work. Sly and clever, none of the Mavericks are much for acts of derring do, but they can be courageous when the situation calls for it. Most often, however, they live by their wits and considerable charm....
Wagon Train
Character: Gen. Ulysses Simpson 'Sam' Grant
The series initially starred veteran movie supporting actor Ward Bond as the wagon master, later replaced upon his death by John McIntire, and Robert Horton as the scout, subsequently replaced by lookalike Robert Fuller a year after Horton had decided to leave the series. The series was inspired by the 1950 film Wagon Master directed by John Ford and starring Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr. and Ward Bond, and harkens back to the early widescreen wagon train epic The Big Trail starring John Wayne a...
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
Character: Police Desk Sergeant
Burns and Allen, an American comedy duo consisting of George Burns and his wife, Gracie Allen, worked together as a comedy team in vaudeville, films, radio and television and achieved great success over four decades....
The Virginian
Character: Carl Bruner
The Shiloh Ranch in Wyoming Territory of the 1890s is owned in sequence by Judge Henry Garth, the Grainger brothers, and Colonel Alan MacKenzie. It is the setting for a variety of stories, many more based on character and relationships than the usual western....
The Virginian
Character: Ben Carter
The Shiloh Ranch in Wyoming Territory of the 1890s is owned in sequence by Judge Henry Garth, the Grainger brothers, and Colonel Alan MacKenzie. It is the setting for a variety of stories, many more based on character and relationships than the usual western....
The Virginian
Character: John Carver
The Shiloh Ranch in Wyoming Territory of the 1890s is owned in sequence by Judge Henry Garth, the Grainger brothers, and Colonel Alan MacKenzie. It is the setting for a variety of stories, many more based on character and relationships than the usual western....
The Virginian
Character: Mack Lewis
The Shiloh Ranch in Wyoming Territory of the 1890s is owned in sequence by Judge Henry Garth, the Grainger brothers, and Colonel Alan MacKenzie. It is the setting for a variety of stories, many more based on character and relationships than the usual western....
Gunsmoke
Character: Jessie
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television....
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
Character: Sheriff
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, sometimes simply called Zane Grey Theatre, is an American Western anthology series which ran on CBS from 1956 to 1961....
Wagon Train
Character: Sam Benson
The series initially starred veteran movie supporting actor Ward Bond as the wagon master, later replaced upon his death by John McIntire, and Robert Horton as the scout, subsequently replaced by lookalike Robert Fuller a year after Horton had decided to leave the series. The series was inspired by the 1950 film Wagon Master directed by John Ford and starring Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr. and Ward Bond, and harkens back to the early widescreen wagon train epic The Big Trail starring John Wayne a...
Crossroads
Character: Chief Crane
An anthology series based on the activities of clergymen from different denominations....
Death Valley Days
Character: Jim Davidson
Death Valley Days is an American radio and television anthology series featuring true stories of the old American West, particularly the Death Valley area. Created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman, the program was broadcast on radio until 1945 and continued from 1952 to 1970 as a syndicated television series, with reruns continuing through August 1, 1975. The series was sponsored by the Pacific Coast Borax Company and hosted by Stanley Andrews, Ronald Reagan, Robert Taylor, and Dale Robertson. With the ...
The Fugitive
Character:
Richard Kimble is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death penalty. En route to death row, Kimble's train derails and crashes, allowing him to escape and begin a cross-country search for the real killer, a "one-armed man". At the same time, Dr. Kimble is hounded by the authorities, most notably dogged by Police Lieutenant Philip Gerard....
Science Fiction Theatre
Character:
Science Fiction Theatre is an American science fiction anthology series that aired in syndication from April 1955 to April 1957. It was produced by Ivan Tors and Maurice Ziv....
Movie Credits
Rebel Without a Cause
Character: Police Lieutenant (uncredited)
After moving to a new town, troublemaking teen Jim Stark is supposed to have a clean slate, although being the new kid in town brings its own problems. While searching for some stability, Stark forms a bond with a disturbed classmate, Plato, and falls for local girl Judy. However, Judy is the girlfriend of neighborhood tough, Buzz. When Buzz violently confronts Jim and challenges him to a drag race, the new kid's real troubles begin....
The 27th Day
Character: Admiral
Five individuals from five nations, including the USA, USSR, and China, suddenly find themselves on an alien saucer, where an alien gives each a container holding three capsules. The alien explains that no power on earth can open a given container except a mental command from the person to whom it is given, then anyone may take a capsule and, by speaking a latitude and longitude at it, cause instant death to all within a given radius: thus each of the five has been provided with the power of lif...
Not of This Earth
Character: Paul Johnson
An alien from planet Davanna, whose population has developed a terminal blood disease caused by nuclear radiation, is sent to Earth to acquire fresh human blood for his people....
The Beast with a Million Eyes
Character: Allan Kelley
At a decrepit farm outside a remote American desert community, something takes over the minds of some of the local humans and animals and is able to see through their eyes and control their actions....
Day the World Ended
Character: Jim Madison
After a nuclear attack, an unlikely group of survivors, including a geologist, a crook and his moll, and a prospector, find temporary shelter in the remote-valley home of a survivalist and his beautiful daughter, but soon have to deal with the spread of radioactivity - and its effects on animal life, including humans....
The Fighting Chance
Character: Auctioneer
A horse trainer and his friend, a jockey, fall in love with the same girl. Complications ensue....
Gunman's Walk
Character: Bob Selkirk
A powerful rancher always protects his wild adult son by paying for damages and bribing witnesses, until his crimes become too serious to rectify....
Queen of Outer Space
Character: Prof. Konrad
A mission to Venus discovers the planet inhabited only by women led by their evil Queen Yllana. Yllana had all the men of Venus killed, now that's she met Earth men, she wants them dead, too....
Portrait in Black
Character: Detective lieutenant
A pair of lovers plot to kill the woman's rich husband....
When Gangland Strikes
Character: Sheriff Mack McBride
In this crime drama, mobsters swear to get revenge upon a zealous public prosecutor as he tries to get them put into prison. The desperate mobsters try to stop him by using his innocent daughter in a blackmail scheme....
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round
Character: Bill Simpson (uncredited)
A sophisticated con man mounts an intricate plan to rob an airport bank while the Soviet premier is due to arrive....
The Gun Runners
Character: Sy Phillips
Remake of "To Have and Have Not" based on Hemingway short story. Plot reset to early days of Cuban revolution. A charter boat skipper gets entangled in gunrunning scheme to get money to pay off debts. Sort of a sea-going film noir with bad girl, smarmy villain, and the "innocent" drawn into wrong side of law by circumstances....
The Tattered Dress
Character: Prosecutor Frank Mitchell
After a wild night, wealthy Michael Reston's adulterous wife Charleen comes home with her ripe young body barely concealed by a dress in rags; murder results. Top New York defense lawyer J.G. Blane, whose own marriage exists in name only, arrives in Desert View, Nevada to find the townsfolk and politically powerful Sheriff Hoak distinctly hostile to the Restons. In due course, Blane discovers he's been "taken for a ride," and that quiet desert communities can be deadly....
Strange Lady in Town
Character: Sheriff
Julia Garth, a female doctor, plans to introduce modern techniques of medicine to old Santa Fe in 1880, but is opposed by an established doctor, Rourke O'Brien....
Gunmen from Laredo
Character: Marshal Matt Crawford
A framed Texas rancher escapes from prison for a showdown with a saloonkeeper....
The World Was His Jury
Character: Martin Ranker
A sea captain stands trial for manslaughter after 162 people are killed in a fire aboard his cruise ship. Director Fred F. Sears' 1958 drama stars Edmond O'Brien, Robert McQueeney, Paul Birch, Mona Freeman and Karin Booth....
Apache Woman
Character: Sherrif
A government agent ventures west to look into reports that Apaches are behind a recent wave of frontier attacks. Begins to suspect a set-up....
Joe Dakota
Character: Frank Weaver
A stranger rides into town and says he is looking for a local Indian. Told he left town, the truth everyone has been hiding comes out including the stranger's true identity....
Counterpoint
Character:
In December of 1944, Lionel Evans, an internationally renowned American conductor, is on a USO tour with his 70-piece symphony orchestra in newly-liberated Belgium. While fleeing from a German counterattack, Evans and his orchestra members are captured by a Panzer division and taken to an old chateau in Luxembourg. Despite orders to execute every prisoner, General Schiller, an avid music lover, commands Evans to give a private concert for him....
A Covenant with Death
Character: Governor
An innocent man is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, but as he's about to be hanged he accidentally kills his executioner. He now faces a new trial, presided over by a young and inexperienced judge....
Wild Heritage
Character: Jake Breslin
Travails of a family heading West in a covered wagon....
A Public Affair
Character: Malcomb Hardy
Expository internal affairs drama which brings to light the often unprincipled tactics used in negative "smear" campaigning, and its effects within the political arena....
Two Rode Together
Character: Judge Edward Purcell
Two tough westerners bring home a group of settlers who have spent years as Comanche hostages....
The White Squaw
Character:
A Swedish settler starts a war when he tries to drive Dakotas off their Wyoming reservation....
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Character: Mayor Winder
Questions arise when Senator Stoddard attends the funeral of a local man named Tom Doniphon in a small Western town. Flashing back, we learn Doniphon saved Stoddard, then a lawyer, when he was roughed up by a crew of outlaws terrorizing the town, led by Liberty Valance. As the territory's safety hung in the balance, Doniphon and Stoddard, two of the only people standing up to him, proved to be very important, but different, foes to Valance....
The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Ghost Farm
Character: Banker
A 15 episode serial in which boy detectives Frank and Joe Hardy try to solve the mystery of a haunted farm where the farmer has died and left no one to care for his livestock. A ghost assists them to prevent the acceptance of a false inheritance claim....
The Spirit of St. Louis
Character: Blythe (uncredited)
Charles Lindbergh struggles to finance and design an airplane that will make his 1927 New York to Paris flight the first solo trans-Atlantic crossing....
Welcome to Hard Times
Character: Mr. Fee
A sociopathic stranger all but destroys a small hardscrabble town but the 'mayor' convinces its survivors to stay and rebuild....
The Raiders
Character: Paul King
Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill and Calamity Jane help a Texas rancher against the railroad....
Five Guns West
Character: J.C. Haggard
During the Civil War, five condemned Southern prisoners are plucked off Death Row and promised pardons on the condition that they undertake a mission to head west and bring back a double-crossing Confederate spy who has a stagecoach full of Confederate gold....
Cattle Queen of Montana
Character: Col. Carrington
Sierra Nevada Jones must fight a villainous rancher to regain the land that is rightfully hers....
Ride Clear of Diablo
Character: Fred Kenyon
A young railroad surveyor returns to his hometown to find the man who murdered his father and brother....
Man Without a Star
Character: Mark Toliver
A wandering cowboy gets caught up in a range war....
Gun for a Coward
Character: Andy Niven
A young cowboy, whose dedication to the principles of peace and reason has earned him a reputation for cowardice, overcomes his psychological aversion to violence after his elder brother unjustly censures him for not joining in a foolhardy gunfight in which their youngest brother is killed....
Adventure
Character: First Mate (uncredited)
A rough and tumble man of the sea falls for a meek librarian....
The War of the Worlds
Character: Alonzo Hogue (uncredited)
The residents of a small town are excited when a flaming meteor lands in the hills, until they discover it is the first of many transport devices from Mars bringing an army of invaders invincible to any man-made weapon, even the atomic bomb....
Assignment: Paris
Character: Colonel Mannix (uncredited)
Paris-based New York Herald Tribune reporter Jimmy Race (Andrews) is sent by his boss (Sanders) behind the Iron Curtain in Budapest to investigate a meeting involving the Hungarian ambassador....
Everything But the Truth
Character: Sen. Winter
Upset with the prevarications of the adult world, Willie launches a truth-telling campaign at school, with the blessings of his pretty teacher Joan Madison....
Too Soon to Love
Character:
Unmarried teenage lovers turn to desperate measures after their clandestine tryst results in an unplanned pregnancy....
The Glory Guys
Character: Commanding General
Though a fictionalized Western based on George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the film is almost a generic war story covering the enlistment, training, and operational deployment of a group of recruits that could take place in any time period....