Subject:  ARCHIIVE: March 11, 1979 ~Hollywood veteran character actor VICTOR KILIAN, whose drawn, lanky persona made him a popular supporting player in films like "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943), and "The Lemon Drop Kid (1951), before blacklistings soon after killed his career, until his success in 1970s TV, working until his home-invasion murder, at age 88. ... |
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Date Posted: Thursday, March 11, 03:58:37pm
American actor who was blacklisted by the
Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950s. ...
  
Victor Kilian
[ Victor Arthur Kilian ]
(March 6, 1891 – March 11, 1979)
Early life, career, and homicide ...
Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, Victor Kilian began his career in entertainment at the age of 18 by joining a vaudeville company. In the mid-1920s, he began to perform in Broadway plays and by the end of the decade had made his debut in motion pictures. For the next two decades, he made a good living as a character actor in secondary or minor roles in films such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938). He was frequently cast as a villain. While staging a fight scene with John Wayne for a 1942 film, Kilian suffered a serious injury that resulted in the loss of one eye.
...He was an early resident of Free Acres, a social experimental community developed by Bolton Hall in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.
During the McCarthyism of the 1950s, Kilian was blacklisted for his political beliefs, but because the Actors' Equity Association refused to go along with
the ban, Kilian was able to earn a living by returning to perform on stage. Sadly, Kilian's wife Daisy Johnson, to whom he had been married for 46 years, died in 1961.
After Hollywood's blacklisting ended, he began doing guest roles on television series during the 1970s. He is best known
for his role as Grandpa Larkin (aka The Fernwood Flasher) in the television soap opera spoof Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976). ...
 
In 1979, Kilian appeared in an episode of All in the Family, "The Return of Stephanie's Father", portraying a desk clerk in a seedy hotel. In the same episode, fellow veteran Hollywood character actor Charles Wagenheim (1896-1979) appeared as a bum in the hotel's lobby. Just weeks before the episode aired, on March 6, 1979 (Kilian's birthday), the 83 year-old Wagenheim was bludgeoned to death in his Hollywood apartment after he was surprised coming home from grocery shopping during an act of robbery. Five days later, on March 11, 1979, Kilian, who lived alone in Hollywood just blocks from Wagenheim, also was beaten to death by burglars in his apartment. On March 20, 1979, All in the Family posthumously aired the episode "The Return of Stephanie's Father", with Wagenheim's and Kilian's last screen performances. ...
Victor Kilian's cremated remains were scattered in the rose garden at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery. Kilian was survived by a son Victor W. C. “Mike” Kilian (1916-1981). ...
 
Links ...
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0453081/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Kilian
https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2009/178/6799966_124624964287.jpg
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