Charles Drake

Charles Drake was born on Oct 02, 1917 in USA. Charles Drake's big-screen debut came with Career directed by Leigh Jason in 1939, strarring Rex Chaney. Charles Drake is known for The Bold Ones: The Protectors directed by Daryl Duke, Leslie Nielsen stars as Deputy Police Chief Sam Danforth and Hari Rhodes as District Attorney William Washburn. The upcoming new movie Charles Drake plays is The Lives of Jenny Dolan which will be released on Oct 27, 1975.

Personable actor Charles Drake was born Charles Louis Ruppert on October 2, 1917 in New York City. He graduated from Nichols College in 1937 and initially became a salesman before switching to acting in 1939 and appearing in little theater productions. He changed his stage name to the more suitable Charles Drake and in the late 1930s managed to snag a contract with Warner Brothers. Drake started apprenticing in small, often unbilled roles in what would become enduring WWII-era classics: Quasimodo (1939), Le faucon maltais (1941), L'homme qui vint dîner (1942), Une femme cherche son destin (1942), Sergent York (1941), and La glorieuse parade (1942), but did not rise suitably in billing rank during that time. Military service interrupted his career in 1943, but he returned to Hollywood within a couple of years sans his Warner Bros contract.Following a slight lull in the freelancing department, he was finally picked up by Universal and actually found better work in still somewhat standardized roles. He played Dr. Sanderson in Harvey (1950), the villain in Héritiers, strychnine et compagnie (1951), and Shelley Winters' cowardly boyfriend in Winchester 73 (1950), among others. He also became a top supporting player in the westerns and war pics of Audie Murphy, who became a good friend offstage. In 1955, Drake turned to television as one of the stock-company players on Robert Montgomery Presents (1950) and a couple of years later became the host of the weekly British TV espionage series Rendezvous (1957).Although he played in over 80 films (mostly dramatic fare) between the years 1939 and 1975, he did not become a star. He continued on as a rather unobtrusive character actor in the 1960s and appeared in such innocuous fare as Les lycéennes (1961) and La vallée des poupées (1967) (as suitor Kevin Gilmore), while showing up occasionally as assorted high-rankers in such films as L'arrangement (1969) and The Seven Minutes (1971). He finished off his career on TV before retiring. Drake died in 1994 at age 76.