Bruce Bennett
Known For: Acting
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: May 19, 1906
Day of Death: February 24, 2007 (101 years old)
Place of Birth: Tacoma, Washington, USA
Bruce Bennett (born Harold Herman Brix) was an American actor and Olympic silver medalist shot putter. His first career was as an athlete. At the University of Washington, where he majored in economics, he played football (tackle) in the 1926 Rose Bowl and was a track-and-field star. Two years later, he won the Silver medal for the shot put in the 1928 Olympic Games. Brix moved to Los Angeles in 1929 after being invited to compete for the Los Angeles Athletic Club and befriended actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who arranged a screen test for him at Paramount. In 1931, MGM, adapting author Edgar Rice Burroughs's popular Tarzan adventures for the screen, selected Brix to play the title character. Brix, however, broke his shoulder filming the 1931 football film Touchdown, so swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller replaced Brix and became a major star. After Ashton Dearholt convinced Burroughs to allow him to form Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises, Inc., and make a Tarzan serial film, Dearholt cast Brix in the lead. Pressbook copy has it that Burroughs made the choice himself, but, in fact, in his biography, Brix confirmed that Burroughs never even saw him until after the contract was signed, and then only briefly. The film was begun on location in Guatemala, under rugged conditions (jungle diseases and cash shortages were frequent). Brix did his own stunts, including a fall to rocky cliffs below. The Washington Post quoted Gabe Essoe's passage from his book Tarzan of the Movies: "Brix's portrayal was the only time between the silents and the 1960s that Tarzan was accurately depicted in films. He was mannered, cultured, soft-spoken, a well educated English lord who spoke several languages, and didn't grunt."[4] Brix shown in the opening credits of the serial The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935). Due to financial mismanagement, Dearholt had to complete filming of much of the serial back in Hollywood, and Brix, although his travel and daily living expenses in Guatemala were covered throughout the shoot, never received his contracted salary, along with the rest of the cast. The finished film, The New Adventures of Tarzan, was released in 1935 by Burroughs-Tarzan, and offered to theatres as a 12-chapter serial or a seven-reel feature. A second feature, Tarzan and the Green Goddess, was culled from the footage in 1938.
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Actor Patrick Norris
The Secret Seven
Actor Dr. Paul Ames
Before I Hang
Actor Detective
The Taming of the Snood
Actor Mordini's former assistant
The Spook Speaks
Actor Officer Sullavan
Girls of the Road
Actor Scotty
The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date
Actor Football Player #20 (uncredited)
No Census, No Feeling
Actor State Trooper (uncredited)
The Man with Nine Lives
Actor Park Ranger (uncredited)
Boobs in the Woods
Actor Frank Garfield
West of Abilene
Actor McManus
The Lone Wolf Meets a Lady
Actor Ole Margarine
The Heckler
Actor Jim - King's Chauffeur
Five Little Peppers at Home
Actor Paul Sinclair
The Phantom Submarine
Actor Policeman
Babies for Sale
Actor Prison Warden
The Man from Tumbleweeds
Actor Bert Rogers
Hi-Yo Silver
Actor Hazen - Guard (uncredited)
Island of Doomed Men
Actor Budge
Cafe Hostess
Actor Geologist Winthrop
Blazing Six Shooters
Actor Ship's gunnery officer
Escape to Glory
Actor Workman with Leaky Lunchpail (uncredited)
How High Is Up?
Actor Reporter (uncredited)
Convicted Woman
Actor Cop (uncredited)
Glamour for Sale
