Tod Andrews on AllMovie

Twice in his career, once in the late '30s and again at the end of the 1940s, it seemed as though Tod Andrews was poised for a major career, first in movies and later on Broadway. Somehow, however, he never realized the promise that was shown at those two points in his life. There is much that is mysterious about the early career of this actor who, at one time, bid fair to become another Henry Fonda; beyond the two different names that he worked under in movies, there were multiple years of birth reported, anywhere from 1914 to 1920, different places of birth, and original names ranging from John Buchanan to Ted Anderson. He was definitely raised in California, and initially took up acting (along with journalism) at Washington State College to overcome a neurotic shyness. He later joined the Pasadena Playhouse, specializing in male ingenue roles, and was seen there in the play Masque of Kings by author Maxwell Anderson, who encouraged him to continue in his acting career. He made it to New York and it was in a production of My Sister Eileen, in the role of one of the "six future admirals" from Brazil, that he was spotted by Jack L. Warner, the head of Warner Bros., and offered a screen test. He passed it, was duly signed up, and first began working in movies under the name Michael Ames. He played uncredited parts in such big-budget features as Dive Bomber and They Died With Their Boots On, and got his first screen credit in a small role in the feature International Squadron, which seemed to bode well for his future. His subsequent vehicles, however, were mostly in the B-movie category, including the Warner Bros. crime drama I Was Framed (which seemed like a warmed-over rewrite of the John Garfield vehicle Dust Be My Destiny) and Truck Busters, a cheap remake of a James Cagney vehicle that was more than a decade old. He was cast as Don Ameche's son in the big-budget 20th Century Fox fantasy-comedy Heaven Can Wait but then turned up in a pair of ultra-cheap horror thrillers, Voodoo Man and Return of the Ape Man, playing the callow male heroes in both. By this time, he was using both his Tod Andrews and Michael Ames personae, depending upon the prominence of the production, but after 1944 Michael Ames disappeared entirely. Dispirited by his first experience of Hollywood, Andrews headed for New York, where he was fortunate enough to join the Margo Jones Company, through which, in 1948, he was cast as the lead in the new Tennessee Williams play Summer And Smoke. His career on Broadway seemed headed in directions that Hollywood never afforded him; having outgrown his youthful callowness, he retained a touch of vulnerability and sensitivity that projected well on the stage. Andrews was seen during the run of the Williams play by producer/director Joshua Logan, who made note of the actor's qualities. He returned to Hollywood briefly in 1950 to play a lead role in Ida Lupino's drama Outrage and then Broadway beckoned again, with one of the best parts of the period -- Henry Fonda was set to leave the title role in the stage production of Mr. Roberts. The director, Joshua Logan, remembered Andrews, who inherited the role for the remainder of its Broadway run and the national tour that followed. Six good years followed, in which the actor enjoyed his good fortune on the stage and was never out of work. He also returned to Hollywood once more, for work in the excellent wartime drama Between Heaven and Hell for Fox. And then something bizarre happened in his career -- what it was may never be known, because all of the principals involved are gone -- Andrews, established Broadway and theatrical star, subject of columnists and feature writers, suddenly turned up the following year in the cheap Allied Artists B-horror film From Hell It Came, playing the hero-scientist battling a killer tree stump on a radioactive South Pacific island. He did well enough in the part, but this was not the sort of film -- the whole production budget was smaller than the outlay on film stock alone for Between Heaven and Hell -- that was going to enhance the professional standing of anyone with an actual career. Andrews next turned up on television, playing Colonel John Singleton Mosby in the syndicated adventure series The Gray Ghost, before returning to the theater. He seemed to be doing well enough until 1961, when, days before the opening of a new play appropriately entitled A Whiff of Melancholy, he attempted suicide. He later said that it was a result of stress over the role. He resumed his career after a convalescence and next turned up in movies in 1965, as Captain Tuthill in Otto Preminger's World War II action blockbuster In Harm's Way. He later made a small but impressive appearance as a defense attorney in Ted Post's Hang 'Em High and had an excellent scene in Post's Beneath The Planet of the Apes, as James Franciscus's stricken commanding officer. Andrews' final screen appearances were as the President of the United States in the political thriller The President's Plane Is Missing (1972} and as a doctor in the chiller The Baby, released a year later.