Marvin Miller's half-century as an actor, announcer and narrator is best recalled for his television role as the man who gave away million-dollar checks.
Miller began in radio in St. Louis as a Washington University freshman and then went to Chicago to launch a network radio career that eventually took him to Hollywood and into films and television.
Although he acted in, announced for or narrated countless radio and television shows, and appeared in several dozen films, Miller was best known as Michael Anthony, the "ever-faithful" executive secretary to mysterious billionaire John Beresford Tipton on "The Millionaire."
Each episode of the television series, which made its CBS network debut in January 1955, started with Miller's character passing out a million-dollar check to startled recipients.
Asked in 1982 what that role had done for his career, Miller replied: "It killed me. I never did another important part in a movie or television series."
Miller was the narrator for "Gerald McBoing-Boing," the story of a boy who speaks through sound effects instead of spoken words — which won the 1950 Oscar for animated short.
In 1944, Miller moved to Hollywood, where he began by announcing for the Red Skelton radio show and was radio's "Coronet Storyteller," narrating and doing all the voices for that five-nights-a-week ABC show. That became "Behind the Story" and then "Marvin Miller, Story Teller."
He did many shows for the Armed Forces Network during World War II and appeared in films beginning with "Johnny Angel" in 1945. Other movies included "Intrigue," "Forbidden," "Peking Express," "Deadline at Dawn," "Dead Reckoning" and "Hong Kong."
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