Larry Haines

Larry Haines (born Larry Hecht; August 3, 1918 – July 17, 2008) was an American actor. Early years Haines was born on August 3, 1918, in Mount Vernon, New York. (Some sources say August 18, 1918, in the same city). He had been active in dramatics in high school, and while he was in college, he was advised to try acting. After a few months of instruction in dramatics, he passed an audition with CBS. He dropped out during his sophomore year of college and "went right into radio working on little stations all around New York City," beginning at WWRL. Radio Haines first became known in the 1930s as an actor on the radio crime series Gangbusters. Playing Joe Lincoln, he was the star of Treasury Agent on the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1947-48, and he had the title role of Mike Hammer in That Hammer Guy on Mutual in 1953-54. He also was featured in The Chase, Cloak and Dagger, Inner Sanctum Mystery, The Man Behind the Gun, and This Is Nora Drake. It was estimated that he acted in more than 15,000 radio programs in the 1940s and 1950s. Four decades later, he would return to radio, starring in 82 episodes of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. Television His best known role was that of next door neighbor Stu Bergman on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow. Haines joined the show for its eleventh episode in 1951, and remained on the serial for the show's duration. He won Daytime Emmy Awards in 1976 and 1981, and was First Lady Pat Nixon's favorite soap opera actor. Haines was reunited with longtime Search for Tomorrow costar Mary Stuart on the prime-time special which saluted 50 years of the soaps in 1996.