Acting
Jul 15, 1911
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Sonny Tufts
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Sonny Tufts (born Bowen Charlton Tufts III, July 16, 1911, Boston, Massachusetts - June 4, 1970, Santa Monica, California) was a United States film actor. Tufts was born into a prominent banking family, whose patriarch had supposedly sailed to America from England in 1683. He broke with the family banking tradition by studying opera at Yale, where he was a member of Skull and Bones. After graduating from college in 1935, he auditioned with the Metropolitan Opera in New York but eventually worked on the Broadway stage. In 1942, Tufts went to Hollywood. He attained some fame during World War II, principally because, due to an old college football injury, he was one of the few handsome male actors not serving overseas in the war. He was married to Spanish dancer Barbara Dare from 1938 to 1953. In the 1980s he was best known as one of the semi-random people and places that TV host Johnny Carson used in his jokes. Tufts died of pneumonia at age 58 in Santa Monica, California, on June 4, 1970. Tufts is the subject of an urban legend. The legend holds that he had been selected to host a well-known radio show as a last-minute replacement for a better known celebrity. The week before Tufts's episode was scheduled, the previous host introduced him with a combination of surprise and outrage, shocked that a relatively unknown actor would succeed him as host. There is no evidence, however, that such an incident occurred. Tufts himself parodied this legend in frequent appearances on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In: seated in a director's chair with his name printed on it, he would turn around to face the camera and utter a word or phrase relevant to the previous bit, in mock contempt. Sonny Tufts was related to Charles Tufts, for whom Tufts University is named. In a non sequitur on the cartoon show Rocky and His Friends, in the Jet Fuel Formula story arc, Bullwinkle J. Moose becomes very upset when Boris Badenov steals his autographed picture of Sonny Tufts. Also, Tufts is mentioned in the last sentence of the third sketch of the 48th show of the second season of the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (also featuring Wailing Whale episodes 5 & 6), which was first released on May 13, 1961. In an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Rob sees a flying saucer that makes a noise "Uhny Uftz", which Rob mis-hears as "Sonny Tufts" In Episode 12, Season 1 of the TV sitcom "My Mother The Car", titled "And Leave The Drive-In To Us," the mother wants to go to a drive-in to see Sonny Tufts for her birthday. He makes an appearance at the very end of the episode, much to the appreciation of the car! Sonny Tufts was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Phi chapter). Description above from the Wikipedia article Sonny Tufts, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Feature Films (27)
When his family goes away for summer vacation, a hitherto faithful publishing executive with an overactive imagination is tempted by an attractive new neighbor.
The Seven Year Itch
Astronauts travel to the moon where they discover it is inhabited by attractive young women in black tights.
Cat-Women of the Moon
Show business twin sisters Rosemary and Susie, one serious and the other a scatterbrain, join the WAVES and both fall in love with crooner Johnny Cabot.
Here Come the Waves
A war veteran suffering from amnesia, returns to Los Angeles from a San Francisco veterans hospital hoping to learn who he is and discovers his criminal past.
The Crooked Way
When the available evidence in a murder case points to a young woman as the main suspect, her boyfriend, a police detective, arranges for a struggling songwriter who is playing piano in a bar to be blamed for the crime. The girl, knowing that neither she nor the piano player committed the murder, helps him to escape from the police dragnet and try to find the real killer.
No Escape
Compton Bennett's war drama The Gift Horse follows the fortunes of ageing destroyer The Ballantrae and her crew from the time they come together in 1940 until the climactic raid on occupied St Nazaire in 1942. Trevor Howard plays Lt Cmdr Hugh Alginon Fraser, the newly appointed captain, back in service after having left the navy following a court martial.
Gift Horse
Television & Series (8)
The Ed Sullivan Show is an American TV variety show that originally ran on CBS from Sunday June 20, 1948 to Sunday June 6, 1971, and was hosted by New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan. It was replaced in September 1971 by the CBS Sunday Night Movie, which ran only one season and was eventually replaced by other shows. In 2002, The Ed Sullivan Show was ranked #15 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time.
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Shiloh Ranch in Wyoming Territory of the 1890s is owned in sequence by Judge Henry Garth, the Grainger brothers, and Colonel Alan MacKenzie. It is the setting for a variety of stories, many more based on character and relationships than the usual western.
The Virginian
The story of the relationship between a man and his mother, the latter having been reincarnated as a 1928 Porter automobile.
My Mother the Car
The Loner is an American western series that ran for less than one season on CBS from 1965 to 1966, under the alternate sponsorship of Philip Morris and Procter & Gamble.
