Hans Conried was born on 15 April 1917. He long suffered from heart problems and died at 64 on 5 January 1982.
He started working in Hollywood in the late 1930s. Although he worked a lot, he performed mostly very small roles. This improved through the 1940s and 1950s. And in the mid-1950s, he moved to television. He did still make some traditional films like The Monster That Challenged the World.
Conried had a very distinctive voice. As a result, he did a lot of voice work. This included radio through the 1950s. He also formed a long collaboration with Jay Ward. Most notably, he was the voice of Snidely Whiplash in “Dudley Do-Right” and Professor Waldo P Wigglesworth in Hoppity Hooper. He also did a lot of work with Dr Seuss.
Like most TV character actors, he worked extensively but (as far as I know) never as a lead actor. So despite dying relatively young, he racked up hundreds of credits. Still, he tended to steal any show he was in. A good example of this is the season two episode of Lost in Space, “The Questing Beast.”
In it, he plays a kind of Don Quixote character questing after a red dragon. It turns out the dragon is a woman. The episode ends with the two in an almost romantic relationship. In addition to Conried’s excellent performance, the episode is notable for two things. The first is that the dragon is voiced by iconic voice actor June Foray, who worked with Conried on “Dudley Do-Right.” The second is that it introduced the spectacled Basset Hound that showed up almost randomly in later episodes.
Other than providing a playlist of Hans Conried’s animated work (which you can easily find on YouTube), let’s watch this episode of Lost in Space!
Other April 15th Anniversaries
Filmmakers/Scholars:
- Elizabeth Montgomery (1933-1995): star of Bewitched (1964-1972) and made-for-TV films like The Victim (1972), Mrs Sundance (1974), and The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975).
- Robert Walker Jr (1940-2019): played the commune leader Jack in Easy Rider, the hippy Herby in The Happening, and perhaps most notably the title character in the Star Trek episode “Charlie X. His actor father played the villain in Strangers on a Train, but died of a mishap following a psychiatric incident.
- Michael Kamen (1948-2003): film composer for many psychotronic films, including The Dead Zone (1983), Brazil (1985), Lifeforce (1985), Highlander (1986), Die Hard (1988), and many more.
- Craig Zadan (1949-2018): producer of Footloose (1984) and Hairspray (2007)
- Glenn Shadix (1952-2010): actor in Beetlejuice (1988), Demolition Man (1993), and Planet of the Apes (2001).
- Tom Weaver (1958-): Film historian and author of numerous books about films and filmmakers with a focus on horror and science fiction.
- Emma Thompson (1959-): actor in Nanny McPhee (2005) and Stranger than Fiction (2006)
- Seth Rogen (1982-): actor and director of films like This Is the End (2013) and The Interview (2014); he was also the voice of the title character in Paul (2011).
- Emma Watson (1990-): besides the Harry Potter films, she was in This Is the End (2013) and Regression (2015).
Films:
- The Monster Maker (1944): a mad scientist film featuring Glenn Strange.
- Devil Bat’s Daughter (1946): an evil psychiatrist uses his skills to kill his wife and frame a patient.
- Stage Fright (1950): Hitchcock film where Jane Wyman tries to prove a friend’s innocence; Marlene Dietrich is a femme fatale.
- Crack in the World (1965): scientists crack the crust of the Earth while drilling to the core to create thermal energy and must fix it; starring Dana Andrews.
- Women of the Prehistoric Planet (1966): a spaceship crashes on a prehistoric planet with giant monsters that turns out to be Earth; featuring John Agar and a young Stuart Margolin.
- Curse of the Crimson Altar (1970): AIP film about a man searching for his brother who was killed by a cult; starring Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff, and Barbara Steele.
- Horror House (1970): Another API film about young people in an old house getting murdered one by one; starring Frankie Avalon.
- The Evil Dead (1981): Young people on holiday unleash demons that take over humans.
- The Resurrected (1992): Dan O’Bannon directed this film based on Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
- DarkWolf (2003): A cop needs to protect a half-werewolf woman from a full-werewolf man who wants to mate.
- The Amityville Horror (2005): Ryan Reynolds stars in this remake of the 1979 film.
- The Curse of El Charro (2005): A demon with a machete harasses four young women on vacation for a familial wrong; Danny Trejo is the voice of the Demon.
- The Curse of Lizzie Borden 2: Prom Night (2008): A museum worker kills students at a local college during prom.
- Orville (2009): A man “tames” his wife via torture.
- Scream 4 (2011): The last of the Wes Craven-directed films in this franchise.
Hans Conreid via Wikimedia. It is in the public domain.
