
Ernest Anderson
Acting
Biography
Ernest Anderson was born in Lynn MA and earned his high school diploma in Washington D.C. at Dunbar High School, formerly named The Preparatory High School for Colored Youth. Founded in 1891, it was America's first public high school for black students. He earned his bachelor's degree at Northwestern University's School of Drama and Speech. He moved to Hollywood and was working in the service department when Bette Davis arranged for him to interview for the role of Perry Clay in the film "In This Our Life" (1942). Mr. Anderson persuaded the director, John Huston, to change the racist dialog of his character typical of Hollywood in that era, to one of dignified intelligence and emotion. After serving his country in WWII, he returned to Warner Brothers where he continued to humanize the roles of America's black performers. He remained active in film until the late 1960's. He died in DeLand, Florida, on March 5, 2011.
Known For
Four Star Playhouse is an American television anthology series that ran from 1952 to 1956, sponsored in its first bi-weekly season by The Singer Company; Bristol-Myers became an alternate sponsor when it became a weekly series in the fall of 1953. The original premise was that Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, David Niven, and Dick Powell would take turns starring in episodes. However, several other performers took the lead from time to time, including Ronald Colman and Joan Fontaine. Blake Edwards was among the writers and directors who contributed to the series. Edwards created the recurring character of illegal gambling house operator Willie Dante for Dick Powell to play on this series. The character was later revamped and spun off in his own series starring Howard Duff, then-husband of Lupino. The pilot for Meet McGraw, starring Frank Lovejoy, aired here, as did another episode in which Lovejoy recreated his role of Chicago newspaper reporter Randy Stone, from the radio drama Nightbeat.
Four Star Playhouse

Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, sometimes simply called Zane Grey Theatre, is an American Western anthology series which ran on CBS from 1956 to 1961.
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre

Run for Your Life is an American television drama series starring Ben Gazzara as a man with only a short time to live. It ran on NBC from 1965 to 1968. The series was created by Roy Huggins, who had previously explored the "man on the move" concept with The Fugitive.
Run for Your Life

Advertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
North by Northwest

A former vaudeville child star viciously torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Racial tensions threaten to explode when a black man is elected sheriff of a small, racially divided town in the Deep South.
… tick… tick… tick…

Kit Madden is traveling to Hollywood, where her best-selling novel is to be filmed. Aboard the train, she encounters Marines Rusty and Dink, who don't know she is the author of the famous book, and who don't think much of the ideas it proposes. She and Rusty are greatly attracted, but she doesn't know how to deal with his disdain for the book's author.
Without Reservations

A down-to-earth pilot charms a European princess on vacation in the United States.
Princess O'Rourke

Two hoodlum brothers are brought into hospital for gunshot wounds, and when one dies, the other accuses their Black doctor of murder.
No Way Out

A dictatorial film director hires an unknown actress to play the lead role in a planned movie biography of a late, great Hollywood star.
The Legend of Lylah Clare

When he's discharged from a military hospital, ex-GI Bob Corey goes on a search for his army buddy Steve Connolly. A reformed crook, Connolly is on the lam from a trumped-up murder rap, and Corey hopes to clear his pal. Tagging along is Army nurse Julie Benson, who has fallen for Corey.
Backfire

An unhappy, self-centered woman runs off with her sister's husband, wreaking havoc and ruining the lives of those around her.
In This Our Life

Mark Fallon, with partner Kansas John Polly, tries to introduce honest gambling on the riverboats. His first success makes enemies of the crooked gamblers and of fair Angelique Dureau, whose necklace he won. Later in New Orleans, Mark befriends Angelique's father, but she still affects to despise him as his gambling career brings him wealth. Duelling, tragedy, and romantic complications follow.
The Mississippi Gambler

In this biopic, Jim Bowie goes to New Orleans, where he falls for Judalon and befriends her brother, Narcisse. Soon, Jim is forced to avenge Narcisse's murder, but Judalon takes up with another man. Jim eventually has another romantic interlude with Judalon and is forced to kill one of her suitors in self-defense. Jim leaves town, and falls for the daughter of a Texas politician, but his entanglement with Judalon continues to bedevil him.
The Iron Mistress

In a racially mixed American town, a five-year-old black girl falls unnoticed into a hidden, forgotten well on her way to school. Having nothing better to go on, the police follow up a report that the child was seen with a white stranger, and rumors run wild. Before hapless, innocent Claude Packard is even found, popular hysteria has him tried and convicted. But is he guilty?
The Well

A New Orleans performer loves a pirate who robs only from the shipowner who ruined his father.
Buccaneer's Girl
Comedy-drama about a bunch of police rookies who conspire to convince their hard-nosed sergeant that a seriously ill fellow officer, two weeks away from retirement, is on the job, and who, when he suddenly dies, try to hide the fact so that his family can collect his full benefits.
Last of the Good Guys

A private detective foils the plans of villains attempting to take over Panamanian oil fields while he searches for a valuable map hidden in plain sight.
Riff-Raff

A vain businessman puts strains on his happy marriage to a rich, beautiful socialite by allowing himself to be seduced by a former girlfriend.
East Side, West Side

While watching from her train window, Nikki Collins witnesses a murder in a nearby building. When she alerts the police, they think she has read one too many mystery novels. She then enlists a popular mystery writer to help her solve the crime on her own, but her sleuthing attracts the attentions of suitors and killers.