Brett Halsey

Brett Halsey (born Charles Oliver Hand; June 20, 1933) is an American film actor, sometimes credited as Montgomery Ford. He appeared in B pictures and in European-made feature films. He originated the role of John Abbott on the soap opera The Young and the Restless (from May 1980 to March 1981). Halsey is a great-nephew of the United States Navy Admiral William F. Halsey Jr., also known as Bull Halsey, commander of the Pacific Allied naval forces during World War II. Universal Pictures selected Brett Halsey's acting name from the admiral. Career Interested in acting since he was a child, young Brett was employed as a page at CBS Television studios, where he met Jack Benny and Benny's wife, Mary Livingstone, who presented him to William Goetz, the head of Universal Pictures, who placed him in a school with other aspiring actors for the studio. Halsey served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, working as a disc jockey. Halsey appeared as Swift Otter, a Cheyenne Indian in the 1956 episodes "The Spirit of Hidden Valley" and "The Gentle Warrior" of the CBS western series, Brave Eagle, starring Keith Larsen as a young Indian chief. In that same year he played “Elser” (a troubled teen cowboy) in James Arness’s TV Western Series Gunsmoke.