Lyle Talbot

Lyle Florenz Talbot (born Lisle Henderson, also credited Lysle Talbot; February 8, 1902 – March 2, 1996) was an American stage, screen and television actor. His career in films spanned three decades, from 1931 to 1960, and he performed on a wide variety of television series from the early 1950s to the late 1980s. Among his notable roles on television was his portrayal of Ozzie Nelson's friend and neighbor Joe Randolph, a character he played for ten years on the ABC sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Talbot began his film career under contract with Warner Bros. during the early years of the sound era. Ultimately, he appeared in more than 175 productions with various studios, first as a young matinee idol, then as the star of many B movies, and later as a character actor. He was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild and in 1933 served on that organization's first board of directors. His long career is recounted in the 2012 book The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's Twentieth Century by his youngest daughter Margaret Talbot, a staff writer for The New Yorker. Early life Lyle was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the only child of Florence May (née Talbot) and Joel Edward Henderson, both natives of Nebraska. In May 1902, just three months after Lyle's birth, Florence died at her mother's home in Brainard, Nebraska from complications attributed to typhoid fever. Lyle was then raised in Brainard by his grandmother, Mary Talbot, who legally changed her infant grandson's surname from Henderson to her own and added "Florenz" as his middle name in memory of her daughter. Later, as a teenager, Talbot moved with his grandmother to Omaha, Nebraska. There he graduated from high school before leaving home at age 17 to work as a hypnotist's assistant, part-time magician, and as an actor, entertaining audiences at traveling tent shows and in theatres across the American Midwest. Film career After gaining years of stage experience in his travels, Talbot in 1929 established his own theatre company, "The Talbot Players", in Memphis, Tennessee, where he hired his father and stepmother, Anna Henderson, to be among the company's roster of performers. At the end of 1931, however, Talbot decided to move to California to find more lucrative acting opportunities in motion pictures.