Tuesday would have been his birthday.
Gerald Mohr was the voice of Raymond Chandler’s “Marlowe” on CBS radio in the late 1940s and 50s. I was a fan and seldom missed an episode. In 1950, at the beginning of the Korean War, Gerry was the star of “Foreign Intrigue,” the first television “spy” series, which was filmed almost entirely in Sweden. Gerry played “Christopher Storm” in dangerous intrigues throughout Europe. Like “Marlowe,” it was my favorite show. In “Funny Girl,” his last film, starring Barbara Streisand, Gerry played Tom Branca, the handsome nightclub owner. He also appeared in several episodes of “Bonanza,” and was a close friend of Lorne Greene’s.
We first met on Buddy Epson’s Catamaran in Newport Beach. Gayle Hunnicutt and I were in an “equity waiver” production in West Hollywood, when Gayle guest starred on “Beverly Hillbillies,” and we were invited to play bridge with Buddy and his wife, and go sailing the next day on their Catamaran – where I was totally surprised when Gerald Mohr walked aboard.
Gerry invited me to Lorne and Nancy Greene’s Mandeville Canyon home in Pacific Palisades. In addition to being head of the Cartwright family on “Bonanza,” Lorne had been the “Voice of Canada” during the war. We spent many weekends playing tennis and talking politics with famous Canadian expatriates.
Just to name-drop a few: Leslie Neilson, while only fair at tennis, was an exceptional ping-pong player, and generally hilarious. The first night we met, he entertained the group with a whoopee cushion under his arm!
Hollywood’s favorite “gangster,” Edward G. Robinson, was urbane, incredibly intelligent, and hairy. Nose, ears, eyebrows – he had hair sprouting from every visible crevice.
Deeply accented, even after 40 years in Hollywood, Fernando Lamas was obviously not Canadian, but he loved talking politics and show business. His Spanish accent didn’t mask his intelligence.
My favorite tennis opponent was Steve Allen. We always played doubles – and laughed a lot – while Jayne Meadows sat in the corner of the court doing needlepoint.
I actually appeared in a couple episodes of Bonanza – three-day bit parts, no starring roles – but I was working! I also played poker. Every other Friday night, a group of starving actors, agents, and writers played at each others homes to commiserate and showoff our card skills – as long as the stakes were reasonable. One such evening, a friend invited me to try out as the voice of Johnny Storm in a new animated cartoon series he was writing, called “The Fantastic Four.”
Our first day on the sound stage, as I anxiously approached the microphones hanging above the easels on which we placed our scripts, in walked ... Gerald Mohr! Gerry played Mr. Fantastic, “Reed Richards,” who ultimately marries the “Invisible Girl.” I was her kid brother, the “Human Torch.” I was touched and quite proud when Gerry signed a photo I still have framed on my wall, “To my kid brother – Love, Ger.”
Gerald Mohr married Mai Dietrich, Hollywood’s top script editor at the time. They had worked together in Sweden. Mai had two sons from a previous marriage, and the family lived two blocks South of Beverly Boulevard in Beverly Hills. They asked me to be a big brother to Mai’s son, Tom. I tried.
We were close friends in those days. Mai and I drove Gerry to the airport when he left for Sweden in 1968 to produce and star in the pilot episode of “Private Entrance” – a new series we planned to work in together. The pilot finished shooting two weeks before Gerry died of a heart attack. He was only 52 years old.
Gerald Mohr was buried on the island of Södermalm, Sweden, in the Garden of Remembrance of Lidingö Kyrka.
In life, as in his films and television, charm was Gerald Mohr’s most memorable characteristic. His voice was as distinctive as his hands were expressive. He was handsome, unassuming, and generous; a great, under-appreciated actor who died much too young, with much left to accomplish. He was the center of social life among his Swedish friends – who scattered like smoke on a gentle breeze the instant he passed.
In 1980, Mai was struck and killed by a speeding motorist as she stepped out of her automobile carrying groceries in front of her home in Beverly Hills.
