American actor (1919–1993) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mort Mills (born Mortimer Morris Kaplan; January 11, 1919 – June 6, 1993)[citation needed] was an American film and televisionactor who had roles in over 150 movies and television episodes. He was often the town lawman or the local bad guy in many popular westerns of the 1950s and 1960s.
During World War II Mills served in the 3rd Marine Parachute Battalion in the Pacific.[1]
Though Mills did much television work, he also found regular work in motion pictures. He is probably best known as the suspicious highway patrolman who follows Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller Psycho (1960). A few years later, he worked again with Hitchcock, playing a spy in East Germany under the cover of being a farmer in Hitchcock's Torn Curtain (1966) starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews.[2][3] Mills also appeared with Charlton Heston in Orson Welles's suspense classic Touch of Evil (1958).[4]
In 1955, he appeared as Samuel Mason on ABC's Disneyland miniseries Davy Crockett starring Fess Parker. From 1957–1959, Mills co-starred with Rex Reason in the syndicated western series Man Without a Gun.[5] He portrayed Marshal Frank Tallman. Reason played his friend, Adam MacLean, editor of the Yellowstone Sentinelnewspaper. He appeared as villains twice in Maverick, first in 1957 with James Garner as Bret Maverick ("Day of Reckoning") and second in 1961 with Robert Colbert as Bret's brother Brent Maverick ("Benefit of Doubt"). In 1958, he guest starred as a particularly greedy bounty hunter who clashes with Steve McQueen's character Josh Randall in the CBSwestern series, Wanted: Dead or Alive. In 1961 he appeared as Jack Saunders in the TV western Lawman in the episode titled "Owny O'Reilly." In the 1965 Three Stooges film, The Outlaws Is Coming, Mills played Trigger Mortis.[6]
He died June 6, 1993. It was first reported he had been smoking in bed, and died in the fire. After the autopsy, it was determined he had died of a heart attack, and the fire was subsequent to his death.
Brooks, Tim; Marsh, Earle F (2007). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946–Present. Ballantine Books. p.733. ISBN978-0-345-49773-4.