Dick Purcell on AllMovie

Dick Purcell was a good-natured, athletic leading man in the Regis Toomey/Lyle Talbot mold, so it seemed natural that he'd end up at Toomey's and Talbot's mutual stamping grounds of Warner Bros. For four years, Purcell was the uncrowned king of Warners' B-picture unit. After several handsome but unmemorable "hero" assignments, Purcell demonstrated a breezy gift for comedy as movie studio functionary Mackley Q. Greene in W.C. Fields' The Bank Dick (1940). Thereafter, it was back to Dick-the-stick leads and villains at Republic and Monogram. Dick Purcell's last film role was the title character in the 1943 Republic serial Captain America; one year later, he died of a heart condition at the age of 35.