Life and Career
Born Edward Bergman in New York City, he majored in journalism at Columbia University, and then began his acting career in the city, eventually working on Broadway. He was Jewish.
For a time, he continued to list himself either as Bergman or Alan Reed, depending on the role he was playing (Reed for more comedic roles, Bergman for more serious ones). He was able to act in 22 foreign dialects, and made a career as a successful radio announcer and stage actor. In 1932, Reed married the former Finnette Walker (1909–2005), a Broadway actress. She appeared on stage in the early 1930s and was a chorus member in the original 1934 Broadway production of Anything Goes with Ethel Merman. They would have three sons, including actor Alan Reed, Jr. (born May 10, 1936).
His radio work included the role of Solomon Levy on Abie's Irish Rose; as the "Allen's Alley" resident poet Falstaff Openshaw on Fred Allen's NBC Radio show, and later on his own five-minute show, Falstaff's Fables, on the American Broadcasting Company; as Officer Clancey and other occasional roles on the NBC Radio show Duffy's Tavern; as Shrevey the driver on several years of The Shadow; as Chester Riley's boss on the NBC Radio show The Life of Riley, and as Italian immigrant Pasquale in Life with Luigi on CBS Radio, and various supporting roles on Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, also on CBS Radio.
From 1957–58, Reed appeared in a recurring role as J.B. Hafter, a studio boss, on the CBS sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve, starring Howard Duff and Ida Lupino, then married in real life but appearing as a fictitious acting couple living in Beverly Hills, California. In 1963, he appeared as Councilman Jack Gramby in episode 8 of the CBS sitcom My Favorite Martian. In 1964–65, he had a recurring role as Mr. Swidler in the ABC sitcom Mickey, starring Mickey Rooney as the owner of a resort hotel in Newport Beach, California.
His final performance as Fred Flintstone was a cameo guest shot on an episode of Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics.
Read more about this topic: Alan Reed
Famous quotes containing the words life and, life and/or career:
“... it is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self—never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardour of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“It is no small mischief to a boy, that many of the best years of his life should be devoted to the learning of what can never be of any real use to any human being. His mind is necessarily rendered frivolous and superficial by the long habit of attaching importance to words instead of things; to sound instead of sense.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)