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Jeff Corey

Jeff Corey

Actor · 1914 – 2002 · Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jeff Corey (born Arthur Zwerling; August 10, 1914 – August 16, 2002) was an American actor, television director, and teacher. After being blacklisted in the 1950s, he became one of the most prominent and influential acting coaches in Hollywood, whose students included the likes of Kirk Douglas, Jack Nicholson, Robin Williams, James Dean, Jane Fonda, Peter Fonda, James Coburn, Leonard Nimoy, Cher, Barbra Streisand and Rob Reiner. He returned to film and television work in the 1960s, playing many character roles. Early life and education Corey was born Arthur Zwerling in Brooklyn, New York to working-class Jewish immigrant parents. His father, Nathan Zwerling, was from Austria-Hungary, and his mother, Mary (nee Peskin), was from Russia. He attended New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn and was active in the school's Dramatic Society. He received a scholarship to the Feagin School of Dramatic Art, where he furthered his studies. Prior to his acting career, he worked as a salesman of sewing machines. Blacklisted and teacher Corey's career was again interrupted in the early 1950s, when he was summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He refused to give names of alleged Communists and subversives in the entertainment industry and went so far as to ridicule the panel by offering critiques of the testimony of the previous witnesses. That led to his being blacklisted for 12 years. "Most of us were retired Reds. We had left it, at least I had, years before," Corey told Patrick McGilligan, the co-author of Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist, who teaches film at Marquette University. "The only issue was, did you want to just give them their token names so you could continue your career, or not? I had no impulse to defend a political point of view that no longer interested me particularly... They just wanted two new names so they could hand out more subpoenas." Back to work in the 1960s In 1962, Corey began working in films again, and remained active into the 1990s. He played Hoban in The Cincinnati Kid (1965); Tom Chaney, the principal villain in True Grit (1969); and Sheriff Bledsoe in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (also 1969), who says to the title characters, "I never met a soul more affable than you, Butch, or faster than the Kid, but you're still nothing but two-bit outlaws on the dodge. Television Corey made guest appearances on many television series. He appeared as murder victim Carl Bascom in the Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Reckless Rockhound" (1964). He was featured on science-fiction series, too, including an episode of The Outer Limits ("O.B.I.T.", 1963) in which he played Byron Lomax; Star Trek ("The Cloud Minders", 1969) in which he played High Advisor Plasus; as Caspay in Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), and Babylon 5 ("Z'ha'dum", 1996) in which he played Justin. Personal life Corey married his wife Hope (nee Victorson) in 1938. They had three children. Death Corey died on August 16, 2002, aged 88, after a fall. CLR

Movies24

  • Movie7.6
  • Movie6.1

    Conan the Destroyer

    1984 · 1.7K votes

  • Movie6.2
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    Bird on a Wire

    1990 · 1.1K votes

  • Movie5.8

    Color of Night

    1994 · 651 votes

  • Movie7.3

    True Grit

    1969 · 885 votes

  • Movie6.8

    The Wild Geese

    1978 · 295 votes

  • Movie7.4

    Miracle on 34th Street

    1947 · 871 votes

  • Movie5.6

    Beethoven's 2nd

    1993 · 1.1K votes

  • Movie7.4

    The Killers

    1946 · 446 votes

  • Movie7.5

    In Cold Blood

    1967 · 450 votes

  • Movie7.4

    Seconds

    1966 · 454 votes

  • Movie5.5
  • Movie6.6

    Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

    1982 · 464 votes

  • Movie7.0

    The Cincinnati Kid

    1965 · 315 votes

  • Movie6.2

    Surviving the Game

    1994 · 226 votes

  • Movie7.4

    Little Big Man

    1970 · 742 votes

  • Movie6.3

    The Last Tycoon

    1976 · 169 votes

  • Movie7.3

    Brute Force

    1947 · 220 votes

  • Movie5.4

    Battle Beyond the Stars

    1980 · 233 votes

  • Movie6.2
  • Movie5.0
  • Movie7.3

    Fourteen Hours

    1951 · 53 votes

  • Movie5.7

Series24

  • TV8.2

    Charmed

    1998 · 2.6K votes

  • TV7.7

    Perry Mason

    1957 · 139 votes

  • TV6.9

    Knots Landing

    1979 · 47 votes

  • TV8.0

    Star Trek

    1966 · 1.6K votes

  • TV7.5

    Bonanza

    1959 · 500 votes

  • TV8.0
  • TV6.8

    Mannix

    1967 · 56 votes

  • TV7.5

    The A-Team

    1983 · 1.1K votes

  • TV8.0

    Babylon 5

    1994 · 622 votes

  • TV7.3

    Night Court

    1984 · 149 votes

  • TV7.2

    Hawaii Five-O

    1969 · 164 votes

  • TV7.3
  • TV7.3

    Barney Miller

    1975 · 62 votes

  • TV6.7

    Simon & Simon

    1981 · 99 votes

  • TV5.9
  • TV7.2

    Newhart

    1982 · 65 votes

  • TV8.3

    Spider-Man

    1994 · 1.2K votes

  • TV7.6

    The Wild Wild West

    1965 · 86 votes

  • TV8.0

    The Untouchables

    1959 · 139 votes

  • TV7.1

    Run for Your Life

    1965 · 7 votes

  • TV7.2

    Rawhide

    1959 · 49 votes

  • TV7.3

    Starsky & Hutch

    1975 · 208 votes

  • TV7.4

    Lou Grant

    1977 · 32 votes

  • TV6.2

    Jake and the Fatman

    1987 · 55 votes