Bradford Dillman

Dillman first performed in a Broadway play as part of the U.S. premiere cast of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night in November 1956. He portrayed the author's alter-ego character Edmund Tyrone and won a Theatre World Award for his performance. The production also featured Fredric March, Florence Eldridge and Jason Robards Jr., and played for 390 performances until March 1958.[6]

During 1955 he appeared in an episode of the television series The Big Picture as an MP patrolling the city of Augusta, Georgia. In 1957, Katharine Cornell cast him in a Hallmark Hall of Fame television production of Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize winning 1940 play, There Shall Be No Night.[7]

Dillman was cast in the movie melodrama A Certain Smile (1958), for which he earned a Golden Globe award. He followed this with In Love and War (1958), a war movie featuring many of 20th Century Fox's young contract players.[8] It was a financial success. So too was Compulsion (1959), featuring Dillman, Dean Stockwell and Orson Welles for producer Richard Zanuck and director Richard Fleischer.[9]

Dillman shared an award for Best Actor with Stockwell and Welles at the Cannes Film Festival.[10] After making the movie A Circle of Deception (1960) in London, Dillman was reunited with Welles, Fleischer and Zanuck for Crack in the Mirror (1960), filmed in Paris.[11] It was unsuccessful. Back in Hollywood, Fox cast Dillman in support of Yves Montand and Lee Remick in Sanctuary (1961). They also had him in the title role in Francis of Assisi (1961).[12]

When he quit Fox, Dillman mostly concentrated on television. He guest-starred in a 1963 episode of The Virginian, titled: Echo of Another Day. He co-featured with Diana Hyland in the Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode 'To Catch A Butterfly in Feb.1963, as well as with Barbara Barrie in the 1964 Hitchcock Hour episode 'Isabel'. He appeared in 7 episodes of Dr. Kildare (1964–66) and 26 of Court Martial (1965–66).[13][14] He guest-featured in television series such as The F.B.I. (6 episodes), Ironside (2 episodes), Shane, The Name of the Game, Columbo, Wild Wild West, The Eleventh Hour, Wagon Train, The Greatest Show on Earth, Breaking Point, Mission Impossible (2 episodes), The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Barnaby Jones (6 episodes) and Three for the Road, and a two-part episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which was made into the feature movie The Helicopter Spies (1968).[15][16]

Dillman appeared twice in the Western television series The Big Valley (1965–69), once in Season 2, Episode 15, titled Day of the Comet, broadcast December 26, 1966; and the second time in Season 3, Episode 9, titled A Noose is Waiting, which was broadcast November 13, 1967.[17] He appeared in occasional movies during this period, including A Rage to Live (1965), Sergeant Ryker (1968), and The Bridge at Remagen (1969).[18]

Dillman played painter Richard Pickman in the television adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's 1926 story, Pickman's Model, presented as the opening act of a December 1971 Night Gallery episode.[19]

Dillman appeared in made-for-television movies such as Fear No Evil (1969), Moon of the Wolf (1972), and Deliver Us from Evil (1973).[18] His film work included Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), The Way We Were (1973), Gold (1974), Bug (1975), The Enforcer (1976), The Swarm (1978), Piranha (1978), Sudden Impact (1983), and Lords of the Deep (1989).[20] He appeared in 10 episodes of Falcon Crest (1982–83), and 2 of Dynasty (1984). His last known acting appearance was an episode of Murder, She Wrote in 1995, his eighth guest appearance on the series.[18]

Dillman's football fan book, Inside The New York Giants, was published in 1995.[21] An autobiography, Are You Anybody?: An Actor's Life, was published in 1997.[22]