William Lundigan

William Lundigan

American actor William Lundigan launched his show business career working as an adolescent announcer for a Syracuse radio station, which was housed in a building owned by his father. Abandoning a planned law career, Lundigan spent thirteen years as an announcer before being discovered by a Universal film executive in 1937. Appearing as a lightweight leading man in such films as Armored Car (1937) and Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1938), and in featured roles in the bigger-budgeted Dodge City and The Old Maid (both 1939), Lundigan worked steadily in the major studios before being drafted into the Marines for World War II service in 1942. Like many other second-echelon Hollywood actors, Lundigan found the going rough after the war, though as a Fox contractee he managed to land occasional good parts in such pictures as Pinky (1949) and I'll Get By (1950). When prospects dried up for Lundigan in the mid-1950s, he returned to announcing as the host of the popular CBS dramatic anthology Climax. Science fiction fans will remember Lundigan for his role in Riders to the Stars (1954), and for his portrayal of TV's first true astronaut, Col. MacCauley, in the 1959 weekly adventure series Men Into Space. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide