Steve Cochran

Steve Cochran (born Robert Alexander Cochran, May 25, 1917 – June 15, 1965) was an American film, television and stage actor.

He attended the University of Wyoming.

After a stint working as a cowboy, Cochran developed his acting skills in local theatre and gradually progressed to Broadway, film and television.

Cochran was born in Eureka, California, but grew up in Laramie, Wyoming, the son of a logger.

While he appeared in high school plays, he spent more time delving into athletics, particularly basketball.

After stints as a cowpuncher and railroad station hand, he studied at the University of Wyoming, where he also played basketball.

Impulsively, he quit college in 1937 and decided to go straight to Hollywood to become a star.

Cochran performed in plays for the Federal Theatre Project in Detroit.

Cochran was rejected for military service in World War II because of a heart murmur, but he directed and performed in plays at a variety of Army camps.

He was appearing with Constance Bennett in a touring production of Without Love in December 1943 when he was signed by Sam Goldwyn.

On Broadway, Cochran appeared in Hickory Stick (1944).

Samuel Goldwyn brought Cochran to Hollywood in 1945.

Goldwyn made only a few films a year, so he loaned Cochran to Columbia Pictures for Booked on Suspicion (1945), a Boston Blackie movie.

Goldwyn then put him in Wonder Man (1945), a Danny Kaye movie co-starring Virginia Mayo and Vera-Ellen in which Cochran played a gangster.

Columbia then used him in another Boston Blackie film, Blackie's Rendezvous (1945), in which he played a villain, and in The Gay Senorita (1945) with Jinx Falkenburg.

Goldwyn then used Cochran in another Danny Kaye movie with Mayo and Vera-Ellen, The Kid from Brooklyn (1946).

After United Artists borrowed him to play a gangster in The Chase (1946), Cochran appeared in the prestigious drama The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), playing a man who has an affair with a woman played by Virginia Mayo that continues even after her husband (played by Dana Andrews) returns from war.

The movie was a huge critical and commercial success.

Cochran had a supporting role opposite Groucho Marx in Copacabana (1947) for United Artists.

Goldwyn got him to play another gangster opposite Kaye and Mayo in A Song is Born (1948), directed by Howard Hawks.

He made his TV debut in "Dinner at Antoine's" for The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse (1949) and followed this with "Tin Can Skipper" for NBC Presents (1949).

He then returned to Broadway to support Mae West in a shortlived revival of her play Diamond Lil.

This revived Hollywood's interest in him.

In 1949 Cochran went over to Warner Bros., playing Big Ed Somers, a power-hungry henchman to James Cagney's psychotic mobster in White Heat (1949) opposite Virginia Mayo.

Warner Bros. eventually took over Cochran's and Mayo's contracts from Goldwyn.

Cochran supported Joan Crawford in The Damned Don't Cry (1950), after which he was given his first lead role, in Highway 301 (1950), playing a gangster.

He was a villain to Gary Cooper's hero in Dallas (1950) and played a Ku Klux Klan member in Storm Warning (1951) with Ginger Rogers and Doris Day.

Cochran was a villain in Canyon Pass (1951), a western, and then was given the lead in Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison (1951), which inspired Johnny Cash to write his song "Folsom Prison Blues".

Warners gave him another lead in Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951), a film noir with Ruth Roman that was originally intended for Burt Lancaster.

He returned to supporting parts in Jim Thorpe – All-American (1951) with Burt Lancaster.

Warners starred him in The Tanks Are Coming (1951) and in a rare sympathetic role in The Lion and the Horse (1952).

He co-starred with Cornel Wilde in Operation Secret (1952) and supported Virginia Mayo in She's Back on Broadway (1953).

In The Desert Song (1953), Cochran played Gordon MacRae's rival for Kathryn Grayson.

He then left Warners.

Cochran starred in the low-budget action film Shark River (1953) for United Artists and was a villain in Back to God's Country (1953), which starred Rock Hudson, at Universal.

He returned to television, appearing in episodes of Lux Video Theatre ("Three Just Men" (1953)), and Studio One in Hollywood ("Letter of Love" (1953)).

He reportedly made a film in Mexico called Embarcardero, in which he wrote, directed and starred alongside Edward Norri.

Cochran then went to Germany to make Carnival Story (1954) for the King Brothers.

It was his first film in Europe.

Back in Hollywood, he co-starred in Private Hell 36 (1954) with Ida Lupino for Don Siegel.