Kirby Grant

Kirby Grant (November 24, 1911 – October 30, 1985), born Kirby Grant Hoon Jr., was a long-time B movie and television actor, mostly remembered for having played the title role in the Western-themed adventure television series ''Sky King''. Between 1949 and 1954, Grant starred in 10 Mounted-Police adventures, usually in the role of Corporal Rod Webb.

Early life and career

Grant was born in Butte in Silver Bow County in southwestern Montana. He was a child prodigy violinist. He continued to study music and became a professional singer and bandleader.

Movie career

In 1939 the '' Gateway to Hollywood'' talent-search contest awarded him a movie contract. These "Gateway" contracts were already prepared with fictitious screen names (thus Josephine Cottle became "Gale Storm" and Ralph Bowman became " John Archer"; Grant won with Dorothy Howe, who became "Virginia Vale"). Grant's contract was made out to "Robert Stanton," and Grant used the pseudonym in his earliest films before adopting his first and middle names professionally. "Robert Stanton" and "Virginia Vale" were introduced in the RKO Radio Pictures feature ''Three Sons'', with Edward Ellis and William Gargan. For the next few years Grant freelanced among various studios; his most familiar picture from this period (as Kirby Grant) is probably ''Blondie Goes Latin'', a 1941 film with Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake.
Grant also appeared briefly in the 1943 submarine picture '' Destination Tokyo'', playing the role of Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, organizer of the famous Doolittle Raid on Japan.

In 1943, Grant signed with Universal Pictures, where he played romantic leads in B musicals, and in Abbott and Costello and Olsen and Johnson comedies. His smooth baritone voice got him teamed with Universal's singing star Gloria Jean for two features in 1944, and then Universal selected him to replace Rod Cameron (who had just been promoted to more important roles) as the studio's B-Western series star in 1945. These seven westerns established Kirby Grant as an action star. In 1949 Monogram Pictures hired him for a series of Mountie adventures, featuring "Chinook the Wonder Dog." Grant was working in this capacity when television beckoned in 1952 with the contemporary series ''Sky King''.

''Sky King''

Grant starred in the series ''Sky King'' during its entire run (1952, and 1956–59), filming 72 episodes in all. He played Arizona rancher-pilot Schuyler "Sky" King, who fought bad guys and rescued people with his airplane. Early villains were bank robbers and kidnappers; some later foils were Russian spies and saboteurs. Sky's first airplane was a Cessna T-50 (known among pilots as the "Bamboo Bomber" because of its wooden wings), and later a much more modern Cessna 310B. Sky's airplanes were named "Songbird". Sky and his niece Penny, played by Gloria Winters

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases