Frank Andrew Lovejoy Jr. (March 28, 1912 – October 2, 1962) was an American actor in radio, film, and television. He is perhaps best remembered for appearing in the film noir The Hitch-Hiker and for starring in the radio drama Night Beat.
Early life
He was born in the Bronx, New York, but grew up in New Jersey. His father, Frank Andrew Lovejoy Sr., was a furniture salesman from Maine. His mother, Nora, was born in Massachusetts, to Irish immigrant parents.[1]
Radio
A successful radio actor, Lovejoy played Broadway Harry on the Gay Nineties Revue[2] and was heard on the 1930s crime drama series Gang Busters. Lovejoy was a narrator (during the first season) for the show This Is Your FBI.
In radio soap operas, Lovejoy played Dr. Christopher Ellerbe in Valiant Lady,[3] Sam Foster in This Day Is Ours,[4] and he had the roles of Brad Forbes on Brave Tomorrow and Larry Halliday in Bright Horizon.[5] He also played the title character on the syndicated The Blue Beetle in 1940, several episodes of The Whistler, and starred in the later newspaper drama series Night Beat in the early 1950s and in episodes of Suspense in the late 1950s. He also starred as John Malone in The Amazing Mr. Malone. He appeared as boxer Rory Malone in the March 20, 1949 episode of Pat Novak for Hire entitled "Rory Malone".[citation needed]
In 1950, he had the lead role in Try and Get Me (aka Sound of Fury) as a struggling, out-of-work man who fell to crime to support his family; in a film noir combining crime and murder with social injustice, an irresponsible newspaper and equally criminal public mob reactions.[6] In 1951, he had the title role in I Was a Communist for the FBI with co-stars Ron Hagerthy, Paul Picerni, and Philip Carey.
In 1940, Lovejoy married actress Joan Banks, with whom he had daughter Judith and son Stephen. On October 2, 1962, Lovejoy died of a heart attack in his sleep at the Warwick Hotel in New York City.[7] He and Banks at the time had been performing together in a New Jersey production of Gore Vidal's play The Best Man.[8]
^US Census 1920, Woodridge, Bergen Co., New Jersey, enumerator's district 125, sheet 18A
^"Saturday's Highlights"(PDF). Radio and Television Mirror. Vol. 13, no. 4. February 1940. p. 52. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
^Buxton, Frank and Owen, Bill (1972). The Big Broadcast: 1920–1950. The Viking Press. ISBN978-0810829572. p. 249.
^Senseney, Dan (September 1940). "What's New from Coast to Coast"(PDF). Radio and Television Mirror. Vol. 14, no. 5. pp. 36–37, 72. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
^Silver, Alain and Elizabeth Ward (1992). Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press. p. 294. ISBN9780879514792.
