WILLIAM CONRAD               

                                               
                                                   IV  




          William Conrad, on only his second screen gig--  
the 1946 Burt Lancaster movie The Killers--   
played one of the two mob button men who kill Lancaster.  
          In the 1949 Screen Directors' Playhouse radio adaptation 
of The Killers,  Conrad played boss baddie Jim Colfax, 
not the bulky torpedo.  
          Interestingly, in the 1952 Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar episode 
'The Glenn English Matter,'  Conrad would essentially play 
the Lancaster role, that of a fated man resignedly waiting 
for two hit men to come and kill him.  



          Speaking of The Killers, a 1958 Suspense episode actually reunited 
the two actors who played the torpedoes in that 1946 movie.  
          If your idea of Two for the Road is the movie 
with Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney, 
it's time to discover that Two for the Road is also a Suspense episode 
with William Conrad and...  Charles McGraw.  
Relax, it's not a romance.  
          Conrad and McGraw play two actors 
who are driving from New York to Hollywood 
but are mistaken for murderous bank robbers 
and detained by an Arkansas sheriff played by Howard McNear.  



          William Conrad doing a Chinese accent?  
Yes, William Conrad doing a 'Chinese' accent, 
as solid and consistent as any done by the 'dialect specialists' of radio. 
See if you can recognize him in the Escape episode 'Misfortune's Isle.'



          Read into it what you will:  
          At the beginning of Escape's 'The Grove of Ashtaroth,' 
Conrad tries an English accent.  
          But when he becomes insane under the spell of Ashtaroth, 
he goes to an American accent.  




          A brief appearance by William Conrad is another reason 
to listen to Escape's  'A Tooth For Paul Revere,'  
Stephen Vincent Benét's humorous history 
of how the beginning of the American Revolution 
hinged on a tooth.  
Conrad who plays a loyalist Royalist wise guy 
who plays a delicious joke on a rube from Lexington.  



          The very first episode of Dangerous Assignment, 
the Brian Donlevy espionage series, gives no credit 
to the supporting actors.  But you will recognize the voice 
of the actor playing the 'half-breed' Sicilian bandit, Lorenzo.  





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