Jeff Corey

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Jeff Corey born Arthur Zwerling August 10 1914 August 16 2002 was an American actor television director and teacher After being blacklisted in the 1950s he became one of the most prominent and influential acting coaches in Hollywood whose students included the likes of Kirk Douglas Jack Nicholson Robin Williams James Dean Jane Fonda Peter Fonda James Coburn Leonard Nimoy Cher Barbra Streisand and Rob Reiner He returned to film and television work in the 1960s playing many character roles Early life and education Corey was born Arthur Zwerling in Brooklyn New York to workingclass Jewish immigrant parents His father Nathan Zwerling was from AustriaHungary and his mother Mary nee Peskin was from Russia He attended New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn and was active in the schools Dramatic Society He received a scholarship to the Feagin School of Dramatic Art where he furthered his studies Prior to his acting career he worked as a salesman of sewing machines Blacklisted and teacher Coreys career was again interrupted in the early 1950s when he was summoned before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee He refused to give names of alleged Communists and subversives in the entertainment industry and went so far as to ridicule the panel by offering critiques of the testimony of the previous witnesses That led to his being blacklisted for 12 years Most of us were retired Reds We had left it at least I had years before Corey told Patrick McGilligan the coauthor of Tender Comrades A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist who teaches film at Marquette University The only issue was did you want to just give them their token names so you could continue your career or not I had no impulse to defend a political point of view that no longer interested me particularly They just wanted two new names so they could hand out more subpoenas Back to work in the 1960s In 1962 Corey began working in films again and remained active into the 1990s He played Hoban in The Cincinnati Kid 1965 Tom Chaney the principal villain in True Grit 1969 and Sheriff Bledsoe in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid also 1969 who says to the title characters I never met a soul more affable than you Butch or faster than the Kid but youre still nothing but twobit outlaws on the dodge Television Corey made guest appearances on many television series He appeared as murder victim Carl Bascom in the Perry Mason episode The Case of the Reckless Rockhound 1964 He was featured on sciencefiction series too including an episode of The Outer Limits OBIT 1963 in which he played Byron Lomax Star Trek The Cloud Minders 1969 in which he played High Advisor Plasus as Caspay in Beneath the Planet of the Apes 1970 and Babylon 5 Zhadum 1996 in which he played Justin Personal life Corey married his wife Hope nee Victorson in 1938 They had three children Death Corey died on August 16 2002 aged 88 after a fall CLR