Andrew Duggan Biography

Andrew Duggan (December 28, 1923 " May 15, 1988) was an American character actor of both film and television. Viewers may have recognized his face on screen much better than his name.

Background

Duggan was born in Franklin in Johnson County in central Indiana, which is also the birthplace of the actor Forrest Tucker. During World War II, he was in the 40th Special Services Company, led by actor Melvyn Douglas in the China Burma India Theater of World War II. His contact with Douglas later led to his performing with Lucille Ball in the play Dreamgirl. Duggan developed a friendship with Broadway director Daniel Mann on a troopship when returning from the war. Duggan appeared on Broadway in The Rose Tattoo, Gently Does It, Anniversary Waltz, Fragile Fox, The Third Best Sport.

Duggan appeared in some 70 films, including The Incredible Mr. Limpet with Don Knotts, and in more than 140 television programs between 1949 and 1987. He was the main character in the Disney theme parks' Carousel of Progress and the singer of the accompanying song, The Best Time of Your Life, subsequently updated with new voices and songs in 1993.

In 1957, Duggan played a villain in the first episode of NBC's Wagon Train, starring Ward Bond. That same year, Duggan was cast with Peter Brown and Bob Steele in the guest cast of the first episode of the ABC/Warner Brothers series, Colt .45, starring Wayde Preston as Christopher Colt, an undercover agent and pistol salesman in the Old West. In the opening episode, "The Peacemaker" or "Judgment Day", Duggan plays Jim Rexford; Brown is cast as Dave, and Steele as Sergeant Granger.

Duggan had a recurring role as General Ed Britt in the second and third seasons of the ABC war series, Twelve O'Clock High. He appeared on the NBC westerns Jefferson Drum and Bonanza and was also in the pilot episodes of both NBC's The Restless Gun and CBS's Hawaii Five-O, as a former prisoner and an intelligence agent, respectively.

Bourbon Street Beat

In 1959, Duggan was contracted to Warner Bros. where he was cast in ABC's Bourbon Street Beat, in which he portrayed Cal Calhoun, the head of a New Orleans detective agency. When Bourbon Street Beat was canceled after a single season, the two other detectives in the series were transferred to other Warner Bros. detective series: Van Williams as Kenny Madison remained in the same time slot with a new series Surfside 6. Richard Long as Rex Randolph assumed ailing Roger Smith's position on the hit series 77 Sunset Strip.

In 1962, Duggan starred in the 26-week ABC situation comedy, Room for One More, with co-stars Peggy McCay, Ronnie Dapo, and Tim Rooney, a son of Mickey Rooney. The series is about a couple with two children who adopt two others.

During this time Duggan guest starred in several Warner Bros. Television series and appeared in several Warner Bros. films, including The Chapman Report and Merrill's Marauders and the television pilot FBI Code 98. He also provide narration for several Warner Bros. film trailers.

1960s

Duggan guest starred in numerous television series in the 1960s, including the series Tombstone Territory in the episode "The Epitaph". He appeared as an incorrigible criminal trying to gain amnesty in the 1962 episode "Sunday" of the ABC/WB series, Lawman, starring John Russell. In 1963, he guest starred on the short-lived ABC/WB western series, The Dakotas.

Duggan was cast on Jack Palance's ABC circus drama, The Greatest Show on Earth and the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour in the role of Carl Quincy in the 1963 episode entitled "Four Feet in the Morning". He played the over-protective Police Chief Dixon in the 1963 spring break film Palm Springs Weekend, tying to prevent his daughter (Bunny Dixon played by Stefanie Powers) from seeing student Jim Munroe (Troy Donahue). In 1965, he appeared on David Janssen's ABC series, The Fugitive. Duggan had recurring roles on CBS's 90-minute western, Cimarron Strip, and on ABC's The Great Adventure.

He had roles in the 1964 film, Seven Days in May, and played the U.S. President and an imposter in the 1967 film, In Like Flint

Lancer series (1968)

Duggan portrayed the patriarch in a 1968"1970 series inspired by Bonanza called Lancer, in which he portrayed a darker and more complex counterpart of Lorne Greene's Ben Cartwright named "Murdoch Lancer", while James Stacy portrayed Lancer's gunfighter son, Johnny Madrid, son of Maria, Murdoch's second wife. Wayne Maunder portrayed the older son, Scott Lancer, who had been educated in Boston. Ironically, in real life Maunder had been reared in nearby Bangor, Maine.

Unlike Bonanza, Lancer lasted for only fifty-one episodes, but critics cited the scripts and performances as excellent. Paul Brinegar co-starred as Jelly Hoskins, having played a similar role of "Wishbone" on CBS's earlier western series Rawhide, with Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood.

Later Film and Television Work

Duggan played John Walton in the original 1971 The Waltons television special The Homecoming: A Christmas Story. The part was played by Ralph Waite in the subsequent series.

In 1973, Duggan had a cameo appearance in the blaxploitation film "Black Caesar", starring Fred Williamson. During the very beginning of the film, he plays the man who is shot to death while getting his shoes shined on the sidewalk.

In 1980, Duggan appeared as Sam Wiggins in the ABC television movie The Long Days of Summer, and later that same year guest-starred in an episode of the CBS series M*A*S*H* as Col. Alvin 'Howitzer Al' Houlihan, the legendary father of Margaret Houlihan, played by Loretta Swit, in the episode "Father's Day".

One of Duggan's last parts was as Dwight D. Eisenhower in a TV biography called J. Edgar Hoover (1987), a role he had played earlier in the NBC mini-series, Backstairs at the White House (1979). He also played Lyndon B. Johnson in a different biography of Hoover, The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977). He played Judge Axel in the movie A Return to Salem's Lot (1987).

Personal life and death

Duggan died of throat cancer at the age of sixty-four.

Duggan was a homebody and devoted father who attended Little League games. In 1954, he married Broadway dancer and actress Elizabeth Logue, whom he called Betty. She survived him by only twenty-three days, for she died of cancer on June 7, 1988.

The couple had three children, Richard, Nancy, and Melissa.