Severn Darden
Birthday: Born in 1929-11-09 in
Deathday: 1995-05-27
Severn Teakle Darden Jr. (November 9, 1929 – May 27, 1995) was an American comedian and actor, and a founding member of The Second City Chicago-based comedy troupe as well as its predecessor, the Compass Players. He is known from his film appearances for playing the human leader Kolp in the fourth and fifth Planet of the Apes films. His live comedy improv skit under the character of "Walther von der Vogelweide" was influential with two generations of comic performers. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, he attended the University of Chicago, where he was a "campus legend" according to poet Paul Carroll. Darden’s offbeat and intellectual sense of humor was a major element in the style of The Second City at that time, and is evident throughout his work. Carroll described him as a combination of surrealistic New Orleans and tough, caustic "Chicago Style" comedy. An example of his offbeat humor is the way he squeezed the phrase "Know thyself" into the seven-character limitation of a New Mexico license plate: NOYOSEF. Darden was a core comedian in Paul Sills' Compass Players, the first improvisation theater in the US; it performed around the Chicago area during the mid-1950s. Sills went on to found The Second City in 1959 and brought in many of the comedians from Compass Players, including Darden.
TV Credits
Starsky & Hutch
Character: Mr. Wheeler
Streetwise Detective David Starsky partners up with a more intellectual partner, Kenneth 'Hutch' Hutchinson, to protect citizens and patrol the streets of Bay City....
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....
Beauty and the Beast
Character:
Beauty and the Beast is an American drama series which first aired on CBS in 1987. Creator Ron Koslow's updated version of the fairy tale has a double focus: the relationship between Vincent, a mythic, noble man-beast, and Catherine, a savvy Assistant District Attorney in New York; and a secret Utopian community of social outcasts living in a subterranean sanctuary. Through an empathetic bond, Vincent senses Catherine's emotions, and becomes her guardian....
Baretta
Character:
Baretta is an American detective television series which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1978. The show was a milder version of a successful 1973–74 ABC series, Toma, starring Tony Musante as chameleon-like, real-life New Jersey police officer David Toma. While popular, Toma received intense criticism at the time for its realistic and frequent depiction of police and criminal violence. When Musante left the series after a single season, the concept was retooled as Baretta, with Robert Blake in the title...
Barney Miller
Character: Randolph Cook
Barney Miller is an American situation comedy television series set in a New York City police station in Greenwich Village. The series originally was broadcast from January 23, 1975 to May 20, 1982 on ABC. It was created by Danny Arnold and Theodore J. Flicker. Noam Pitlik directed the majority of the episodes....
Alias Smith and Jones
Character:
Alias Smith and Jones is an American Western series that originally aired on ABC from 1971 to 1973. It stars Pete Duel as Hannibal Heyes and Ben Murphy as Jedediah "Kid" Curry, a pair of cousin outlaws trying to reform. The governor offers them a conditional amnesty, as he wants to keep the pact under wraps for political reasons. The condition is that they will still be wanted— until the governor can claim they have reformed and warrant clemency....
Laverne & Shirley
Character:
Laverne & Shirley is an American television sitcom that ran on ABC from January 27, 1976 to May 10, 1983. It starred Penny Marshall as Laverne De Fazio and Cindy Williams as Shirley Feeney, single roommates who worked as bottlecappers in a fictitious Milwaukee brewery called "Shotz Brewery." The show was a spin-off from Happy Days, as the two lead characters were originally introduced on that series as acquaintances of Fonzie. Set in roughly the same time period, the timeline started in approxi...
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Character: S.I. Gilbert, Aimee's lawyer
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 Fall Guy
Character:
Hollywood stuntman Colt Seavers picks up some extra pocket money by using his rough-and-tumble skills to track and capture bail jumpers....
Kolchak: The Night Stalker
Character: Dr. Aaron Pollack
Kolchak: The Night Stalker is an American television series that aired on ABC during the 1974–1975 season. It featured a fictional Chicago newspaper reporter who investigated mysterious crimes with unlikely causes, particularly those that law enforcement authorities would not follow up. These often involved the supernatural or even science fiction, including fantastic creatures....
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Character: Franklin
A television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock featuring dramas, thrillers, and mysteries....
The Monkees
Character:
Micky, Mike, Peter, and Davy are four young men in mid-1960s LA, members of a struggling country-folk-rock band looking for their big break amid madcap encounters with a variety of people straight out of TV and movie central casting, with full knowledge that their existence is part of a weekly television series...
Harry O
Character:
After being shot in the line of duty, Harry Orwell was forced to retire from the San Diego Police Department. To supplement his police pension, Harry runs a private detective agency out of his beach house... The series starred David Janssen and was executive produced by Jerry Thorpe....
Daniel Boone
Character: Sir Hubert Spencer
Daniel Boone is an American action-adventure television series starring Fess Parker as Daniel Boone that aired from September 24, 1964 to September 10, 1970 on NBC for 165 episodes, and was made by 20th Century Fox Television. Ed Ames co-starred as Mingo, Boone's Cherokee friend, for the first four seasons of the series. Albert Salmi portrayed Boone's companion Yadkin in season one only. Dallas McKennon portrayed innkeeper Cincinnatus. Country Western singer-actor Jimmy Dean was a featured actor...
City of Angels
Character: Winnie
City of Angels is a 1976 television series created by Stephen J. Cannell and Roy Huggins, who had previously worked together on The Rockford Files. American mystery novelist Max Allan Collins has called City of Angels "the best private eye series ever."...
Occasional Wife
Character:
...
Barbary Coast
Character:
Barbary Coast is an American television series that aired on ABC. The pilot movie first aired on May 4, 1975 and the series itself premiered September 8, 1975; the last episode aired January 9, 1976. Barbary Coast was inspired by a similar 19th-century spy series, The Wild Wild West, and like the earlier program, Barbary Coast mixed the genres of Western and secret agent drama....
Honey West
Character: Dr. Gregory Ames
After her father's death, Honey West takes over his high-tech private-detective firm, assisted by rugged Sam Bolt--and her pet ocelot Bruce....
Flying High
Character:
Flying High is an American comedy-drama series that aired on CBS from August 28, 1978 until January 23, 1979. Created by Dawn Aldredge and Martin Cohan, the series stars Connie Sellecca, Pat Klous, and Kathryn Witt....
The Practice
Character:
Sitcom about Jules Bedford, a crusty, sometimes grumpy, and somewhat absent-minded old-school doctor with a genuine concern for people....
Faerie Tale Theatre
Character: Farmer Silas
A live-action children's television anthology series retelling popular fairy tales....
The Six Million Dollar Man
Character: Apploy
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....
The Name of the Game
Character: Cameron
The Name of the Game is an American television series starring Tony Franciosa, Gene Barry, and Robert Stack that ran from 1968 to 1971 on NBC, totaling 76 episodes of 90 minutes. It was a pioneering wheel series, setting the stage for The Bold Ones and the NBC Mystery Movie in the 1970s. The show had an extremely large budget for a television series....
Beyond Westworld
Character: Foley
Beyond Westworld was a short-lived 1980 television series that carried on the stories of the two feature films, Westworld and Futureworld. It featured Jim McMullan as Security Chief John Moore of the Delos Corporation. The story revolved around John Moore having to stop the evil scientist, Quaid, as he planned to use the robots in Delos to try to take over the world. Despite being nominated for two Emmys, only five episodes were produced, and only three of them were aired before cancellation....
Cheers
Character: Professor DeWitt
The story about a blue-collar Boston bar run by former sports star Sam Malone and the quirky and wonderful people who worked and drank there....
I Dream of Jeannie
Character: Milton
While on a mission, American astronaut Captain Tony Nelson is forced to make an emergency landing that will forever change his life. On a deserted South Pacific island, Captain Nelson happens upon a bottle containing a beautiful two-thousand-year-old female genie named Jeannie. Rescuing her from the bottle nets Tony the requisite three wishes, and then some, when Jeannie pledges total devotion to her new "master"....
Movie Credits
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
Character: Kolp
In a futuristic world that has embraced ape slavery, a chimpanzee named Caesar resurfaces after almost twenty years of hiding from the authorities, and prepares for a revolt against humanity....
Battle for the Planet of the Apes
Character: Kolp
The fifth and final episode in the Planet of the Apes series. After the collapse of human civilization, a community of intelligent apes led by Caesar lives in harmony with a group of humans. Gorilla General Aldo tries to cause an ape civil war and a community of human mutants who live beneath a destroyed city try to conquer those whom they perceive as enemies. All leading to the finale....
Saturday the 14th
Character: Van Helsing
After his family moves to a new house, a young boy discovers a mysterious book that details a curse hanging over the date of Saturday the 14th. Opening the book releases a band of monsters into the house and the family must join together to save themselves and their neighborhood....
Jackson County Jail
Character: Sheriff Dempsey
A young woman stumbles into a nightmare land of hijacking and humiliation while driving cross-country from California to New York....
Victory at Entebbe
Character: Moshe Meyer
The film is based on an actual event: Operation Entebbe and the freeing of Israeli hostages at Entebbe Airport (now Entebbe International Airport) in Uganda....
Justine
Character: Bathazar
In Alexandria, in 1938, Darley, a young British schoolmaster and poet, makes friends through Pursewarden, the British consular officer, with Justine, the beautiful and mysterious wife of a Coptic banker. He observes the affairs of her heart and incidentally discovers that she is involved in a plot against the British, meant to arm the Jewish underground in Palestine. The plot finally fails, Justine is sent to jail and Darley decides to return to England....
The President's Analyst
Character: Kropotkin
At first, Dr. Sidney Schaefer feels honored and thrilled to be offered the job of the President's Analyst. But then the stress of the job and the paranoid spies that come with a sensitive government position get to him, and he runs away. Now spies from all over the world are after him, either to get him for their own side or to kill him and prevent someone else from getting him....
Vanishing Point
Character: J. Hovah
Kowalski works for a car delivery service, and takes delivery of a 1970 Dodge Challenger to drive from Colorado to San Francisco. Shortly after pickup, he takes a bet to get the car there in less than 15 hours....
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Character: Cecil
In the midst of the Great Depression, manipulative emcee Rocky enlists contestants for a dance marathon offering a $1,500 cash prize. Among them are a failed actress, a middle-aged sailor, a delusional blonde and a pregnant girl....
The Day of the Dolphin
Character: Schwinn
Dr. Jake Terrell, who has been training a pair of dolphins for many years, has had a breakthrough. He has taught his dolphins to speak and understand English, although they do have a limited vocabulary. When the dolphins are stolen, he discovers they're to be used in an assassination attempt. Now he is in a race to discover who is the target, and where the dolphins are, before the attempt is carried out....
Wanda Nevada
Character: Merlin Bitterstix
In the American Southwest of the 1950s, middle-aged vagabond Beaudray Demerille survives as a cardsharp who moves from town to town. But his latest victory brings him unwanted spoils in the form of Wanda Nevada, a fiery 13-year-old. At first Beaudray does everything he can to ditch Wanda -- until the girl chances upon a treasure map. But Wanda and Beaudray aren't the only ones after the loot, and they must contend with a ruthless pair of crooks....
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round
Character: Miles Fisher
A sophisticated con man mounts an intricate plan to rob an airport bank while the Soviet premier is due to arrive....
Playmates
Character: Roger, Man in Gallery
Two divorced men meet and become friends, but unbeknownst to each other, start dating each other's ex-wives....
Cisco Pike
Character: Lawyer
A down on his luck former drug dealer is forced by a corrupt LAPD policeman to sell 100 kilos of confiscated marijuana in one weekend....
The Man Who Died Twice
Character: Harry
A painter who surfaces after having disappeared for seven years finds himself contending with art forgeries and a crooked art dealer....
I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now?
Character: Mr. Fletch / Dr. DeHart
Oliver is in trouble. He's been caught embezzling money from his father's company, and unless he can pay back the $250,000 he took (which he can't), he will be fired from his job, arrested and probably sent to jail. Meanwhile, his rich wife has not only refused to bail him out of this mess, she's planning to divorce him. Desperate, Oliver thinks up a way out. He takes out an insurance policy on his wife with him as the beneficiary, then hires a hit man to kill her. The only problem is that becau...
Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You
Character: Dr. Fahrquardt
An American playwright living in Rome consults a quack psychiatrist to combat his fears of balding and save his failing marriage....
Quarterback Princess
Character: Mr. Hobart
The Maida family has moved to Oregon, and daughter Tami wants to play quarterback for the high school football team. There's just one problem. She's a girl. With everyone from the coach to her next door neighbor against her, she's out to prove that not only can she can play football, but she can win the state championship. (Based on a true story)...
The Double-Barrelled Detective Story
Character: H.S. Stevens
Interesting and sometimes funny adaptation of a Mark Twain short story. Hatfield is a carpetbagger who marries the daughter of a prominent plantation owner in order to humiliate him. He mistreats his wife, but she stoically refuses to complain to her father....
The Legend of Hillbilly John
Character: Mr. Marduke
A roaming hillbilly, on a quest to defy the Devil, encounters several supernatural characters and does battle with his silver-stringed guitar....
Back to School
Character: Dr. Barazini
Self-made millionaire Thornton Melon decides to get a better education and enrolls at his son Jason's college. While Jason tries to fit in with his fellow students, Thornton struggles to gain his son's respect, giving way to hilarious antics....
The Disappearance of Aimee
Character: S.I. Gilbert
In 1926, celebrated evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson mysteriously disappeared. She turned up several weeks later and recounted the details of her kidnapping and escape to authorities. Not everyone believed her, however, and she was accused of having gone away to have an affair with a married man. A court hearing took place to reveal the truth....
A Small Circle of Friends
Character: Art Professor
In the late 1960s, three Harvard students Jessica, Leo and Nick grow close as they undergo personal changes, but their friendship is jeopardized by romantic feelings both men develop for Jessica....
Evita Peron
Character: Alfredo Suero
Aspiring actress Eva Duarte rises from a minor celebrity to the wife of a powerful Argentine dictator, but her all consuming fiery rage, ambition, and hatred eventually become her downfall....
Dirty Little Billy
Character: Big Jim McDaniel
Clearly influenced by the darker, more sinister style of spaghetti westerns, Dirty Little Billy offers a unique insight into the beginnings of the notorious outlaw Billy The Kid....
Never Con a Killer
Character: Cap
Pilot to the short-lived TV series "The Feather and Father Gang" has Detective Feather Danton and her con-man father Harry teaming up to outwit Runyonesque horseplayer E.J. Valerian....
Real Genius
Character: Dr. Meredith
When teenage geniuses Mitch Taylor and Chris Knight, working on an advanced laser project, learn that the military wants to use it as a weapon, they decide to thwart the plan....
P.J.
Character: Shelton Quell
Reluctant New York City private eye P.J. Detweiler is hired as a bodyguard to protect Maureen Preble, the mistress of shady millionaire William Orbison. In truth, Orbison plans a deadly intrigue in which P.J. is to play a central part. Meanwhile, complications ensue as P.J. gradually falls in love with Maureen. (Wikipedia)...
The Movie Murderer
Character: Jimmy Apache
An experienced arson investigator takes along his young associate as they try to find an arsonist who is burning down movie sets....
The Mad Room
Character: Nate
Ellen Hardy gets a rude awakening when she discovers that her brother and sister are scheduled to leave their mental institution. As children, they were put there after killing their parents. Ellen, who now lives in the house of an old widow, Mrs. Armstrong, takes them in. But if their secret gets out, it could jeopardize Ellen's plans to wed Mrs. Armstrong's stepson. She struggles with anxiety -- until Mrs. Armstrong suddenly turns up dead....
Half Nelson
Character: Morgue Attendant
Rocky Nelson is a New York cop, who after making a major bust and selling the rights of his story to Hollywood decides to try his luck out as an actor. However, when he gets there, the directors think that he is too short to be an actor. He is then approach by someone who offers him a job at a Hollywood security agency, cause he would fit in there being an ex-cop and while working there he could come in contact with some Hollywood heavy-weights who could give him the break he needs. And at the s...
Luv
Character: Vandergist
Depressed by the direction his life is taking, Harry decides to take his own life by jumping off the Manhattan Bridge. At the last minute he's stopped by old friend Milt Manville, a successful stock broker. Milt, however, is facing his own problem: he has fallen out of love with his argumentative wife, Ellen. In a misguided effort to solve both of their problems, he introduces Ellen to Harry, hoping the two will fall in love....
Mother, Jugs & Speed
Character: Moran
To beat out competing ambulance services, an ace driver, an office secretary/paramedic and a suspended cop resort to some outrageous behavior to help people in distress. They're a crew whose condition is even more critical than their clients!...
Orphan Train
Character: Mr. Barrington
A dedicated social worker organizes a train trip for a group of slum orphans in 1894, taking them from New York City to the Midwest in search of new families and new lives....
The Telephone
Character:
Crazy out of work actress Vashti Blue spends all her time in her small apartment with her pet owl and her telephone, which she uses to try and solve all her problems with life....
The War Between Men and Women
Character: Dr. Harris
A sarcastic near-sighted cartoonist, averse to commitment, falls for a single mother of three — the only woman who can stand his strong anti-feminist opinions....
Skyway to Death
Character: Steve Kramer
The passengers in an aerial tramway are trapped when the tramway breaks down 8,500 feet in the air....
Hopscotch
Character: Maddox
When CIA operative Miles Kendig deliberately lets KGB agent Yaskov get away, his boss threatens to retire him. Kendig beats him to it, however, destroying his own records and traveling to Austria where he begins work on a memoir that will expose all his former agency's covert practices. The CIA catches wind of the book and sends other agents after him, initiating a frenetic game of cat and mouse that spans the globe....
Goldstein
Character: Doctor
GOLDSTEIN, the feature film debut of talented director Philip Kaufman, is an early example of American independent filmmaking from the early 1960s. A fable about an old man with an odd effect on those he encounters, the film is a funny, warm-hearted postcard from an important moment in American cinema. GOLDSTEIN, starring veteran character actor Lou Gilbert, shared the Prix de la Nouvelle Critique at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival with Bertolucci’s Before the Revolution. Cinema deity Jean Renoir ...
Once Upon a Midnight Scary
Character: Jonathan Barnavelt
"Once Upon a Midnight Scary" is a 1979 television program that aired as part of a CBS television anthology series. The program, hosted by noted actor Vincent Price, features scenes from three stories, including "The Ghost Belonged to Me" by Richard Peck, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving, and "The House with a Clock in Its Walls" by John Bellairs....
Fearless Frank
Character: The Good Doctor / Claude
A country boy arrives in Chicago, gets killed by some gangsters, and returns to life with superhuman powers in this satirical look at movie genres....
To See or Not to See
Character:
A scientist develops an unusual pair of eyeglasses which allows the wearer's mind to see things objectively rather than the usual subjective manner....
Play It as It Lays
Character: Hypnotist
Burned-out B-movie actress Maria, depressed and frustrated with her loveless marriage to an ambitious film director, Carter Lang, who would rather work on his career than on his relationship with her, numbs herself with drugs and sex with strangers. Only her friendship with a sensitive gay movie producer, B.Z., offers a semblance of solace. But even that relationship proves to be fleeting amidst the empty decadence of Hollywood....
The Hired Hand
Character: McVey
Harry Collings returns home to his farm after drifting with his friend, Arch. His wife, who had given up on him, reluctantly allows him to stay, and soon believes that all will be well again. But then Harry has to make a difficult decision regarding his loyalties and priorities....
In God We Tru$t
Character: Priest
A naive monk, named Brother Ambrose, is sent by the abbot on a mission to raise $5,000 in order to save their monastery from closing. He goes to Hollywood where he encounters a number of eccentric characters....
The Last Movie
Character: Mayor
After a film production wraps in Peru, an American wrangler decides to stay behind, witnessing how filmmaking affects the locals....
Model Shop
Character: Camera Shop Owner
While trying to raise money to prevent his car from being repossessed, George is attracted to Lola, a Frenchwoman who works in a "model shop", an establishment that rents out beautiful pin-up models to photographers. George spends his last twelve dollars to photograph Lola, and discovers that she is as unhappy as he....
The Virgin President
Character: U.S. President / Fillmard Millmore
The President of the U.S. is suceeded by his naive, wide-eyed son, and his advisors try to take advantage of the situation by planning to drop an atomic bomb on Manhattan and blaming it on the Red Chinese....
Love for Rent
Character: Fred Hallem
Two small-town sisters go to Hollywood and find themselves seduced by the glamor of the big time and big money as high-priced professional escorts....
Werewolves on Wheels
Character: One
A biker gang visits a monastery where they encounter black-robed monks engaged in worshipping Satan. When the monks try to persuade one of the female bikers, Helen, to become a satanic sacrifice the bikers smash up the monastery and leave. The monks have the last laugh, though, as Helen, as a result of the satanic rituals, is now possessed and at night changes into a werewolf, with dire results for the biker gang....
Rooster
Character: Conway
A physically small police psychologist and a physically large insurance detective team up on an arson case....
Bongo Wolf’s Revenge
Character:
An oddball picture about legendary kooky and colorful Los Angeles fringe eccentric cult figure Bongo Wolf. Through the course of the film, Bongo visits his friends in Hollywood, gives a lecture on vampires and prehistoric man, visits the Count Dracula society, plays his bongo drums......