Larry J. Blake

A native of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, he started his career in vaudeville as an impersonator, working his way to a headliner. After appearing at the Roxy Theatre and the Rainbow Room in New York City, he was offered a screen test with Universal studios.

Signing in 1936, he first appeared in the serial Secret Agent X-9 (1937). He later appeared in The Road Back (1937), Trouble at Midnight (1938), Air Devils (1938), The Nurse From Brooklyn (1938), State Police (1938), and The Jury's Secret (1938).

Serving in the U.S. Navy during WWII, his alcoholism almost got him dishonorably discharged. At the end of the war, he was sent to a California military hospital where a Jesuit priest introduced him to Alcoholics Anonymous.

In 1947, Blake started the first Motion Picture AA group. For the next 35 years, he helped many inside and outside the film industry gain sobriety.'

Blake was part of an effort to bring vaudeville back in Los Angeles.[1]

Over the next 33 years he appeared in numerous films, including Sunset Boulevard, High Noon, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Portrait of a Mobster, The Shaggy Dog, Herbie Rides Again, and Time After Time (his last film appearance).

Television credits included guest starring in James Arness's TV Western Series Gunsmoke (as a conspirator named “Dolph” in the 1956 episode “Hack Prine” (S1E26), again as “Budge Carter” in the 1959 episode “There Never Was A Horse (S3E35) & twice in 1964; once as “Shell” in “The Promoter (S9E30) and again as “Man” in “Help Me Kitty” (S10E7), Straightaway, Here's Lucy, Adam-12, Have Gun – Will Travel, Perry Mason, The Waltons, Little House on the Prairie, The Jerry Lewis Show, and Night Gallery. He was a regular on the Pride of the Family series (1953–54) and had a recurring role as the Jailer in Yancy Derringer (1958–59). In 1958 Blake appeared as the Posse Leader in the TV western Tales of Wells Fargo in the episode titled "Butch Cassidy."

Blake retired in 1979 due to emphysema.

He died on May 25, 1982, and is interred at San Fernando Mission Cemetery. His wife, Teresa, whom he married in 1936, died in 2005.

His only child, Michael, worked as a child actor before becoming a film/TV Makeup artist in 1978. Blake and his son never played father and son in any film or television show, although they did appear together in an episode of Kung Fu (1974) and in the film, One More Train to Rob (1971).

• Larry J. Blake at IMDb