John Carradine

John Carradine
Los Angeles Times

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John Carradine
Film: South side of the 6200 block of Hollywood Boulevard
Actor
Born Richmond Carradine on Feb. 5, 1906 in Greenwich Village, NY
Died Nov. 27, 1988 in Milan, Italy

John Carradine, who made more than 500 movie appearances over 58 years, was one of the most prolific actors of all time.

The tall, gaunt Carradine boasted of appearing in "10 of the greatest films ever made," including "Stagecoach," "The Grapes of Wrath," "Captains Courageous" and "Blood and Sand." He played hillbillies, philosophizing old men, preachers and eccentrics. He often appeared in cheap horror movies, playing evil scientists and mad sadists. He portrayed Count Dracula three times.

Carradine married four times and had five sons. Three of them, David, Keith and Robert, became television and film actors.

Keith Carradine once told an interviewer that his father didn't like to discuss his horror films. He said his father often accepted parts because he needed the money and at one time said to him: "Just make sure that if you've got to do a role you don't like, it makes you a lot of money."

Carradine claimed to have appeared in more than 160 plays in the United States and abroad, including "The Time of Your Life," "On Golden Pond," "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" and some 25 stagings of "Tobacco Road" with Carradine in the familiar role of Jeeter Lester.

In the 1950s, Carradine found work in television, regularly appearing in "Lights Out," "Climax," "Bat Masterson," "Thriller" and "The Red Skelton Show."

In the 1960s, '70s and '80s, he made even more films, including "House of Long Shadows" and Woody Allen's "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Afraid to Ask."

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