Stephen McNally(1911-1994)
- Actor
Dark-haired, rugged-looking Stephen McNally forsook a thriving career as an attorney in the late 1930s in order to pursue an acting career. This impulsive decision to switch gears in mid-life was rewarded in the end, playing a steady stream of hard-edged, noirish characters and more than his share of cold-hearted villains and thugs for nearly four decades.
Born Horace Vincent McNally on July 29, 1911 in New York City of Irish descent, he attended Fordham University Law School. Like fellow Irish-American performers J. Farrell MacDonald, Pat O'Brien, and Dennis Day, McNally's voice often carried at least the trace of an innate, rather than acquired, working-class/transatlantic Irish accent. He practiced law until the late 1930s when the acting bug finally hit hard. Beginning on the stage, Horace made his Broadway debut in a bit part as a waiter in "The Man Who Killed Lincoln" (1940). This was immediately followed by more prominent roles in the plays "Johnny Belinda" (1940) and "The Wookey" (1941).
MGM took an interest in the nascent actor during the war-era years. Continuing to use his real name of Horace McNally, he appeared in a series of film shorts while moving gradually up the credits ranks with featured roles in such full-length films as Grand Central Murder (1942), The War Against Mrs. Hadley (1942), Les yeux dans les ténèbres (1942), Pour moi et ma mie (1942), Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant (1942), the Tracy/Hepburn drama La flamme sacrée (1942), the Laurel & Hardy comedy Laurel et Hardy chefs d'îlots (1943), Le héros du Pacifique (1943), 30 Secondes sur Tokio (1944), Une romance américaine (1944), and Bewitched (1945).
By 1948, the actor was freelancing and made a strong impression in the Warner Bros. movie version of the Canadian-set Johnny Belinda, l'enfant du silence (1948), playing menacing brute "Locky McCormick", a fisherman who sexually assaults deaf mute Belinda played by Jane Wyman (who won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance), who bears his child. This was a far different role than the doctor part he played years earlier on Broadway. With this movie, Horace also changed his marquee name to Stephen McNally, taking the first name of his then-2-year-old son.
Alternating between anti-heroes and villains, Stephen is best recalled for his sturdy niche of "bad guy" roles. He played a Nazi war criminal pursued by Army agent Dick Powell in the action adventure Légion étrangère (1948); a casino owner who prods Barbara Stanwyck's gambling habit in Une femme joue son bonheur (1949); a foreign terrorist in the historical action pic La bataille des sables (1949); Ida Lupino's murderous husband in L'araignée (1950); a rifle-stealing bully in the James Stewart western Winchester 73 (1950); a gambler who uses his hot-headed brother Jeff Chandler for prizefighting profit in Iron Man (1951); a murderous Austrian count in the swashbuckler Le mystère du château noir (1952); an escaped killer on the lam in Même les assassins tremblent (1953); a paroled gangster out to exact revenge on Dorothy McGuire and her daughter in Ultime sursis (1954); a bank robber in Les inconnus dans la ville (1955); an avenging ranch hand in La loi de la prairie (1956); and a wanted member of the James gang in the western Carrefour de la vengeance (1957).
In his first top-billed role, McNally starred as a decent guy who runs a youth center in an effort to save kids from a life of crime in the dramatic film Graine de faubourg (1949). Other "good guy" leads and second leads came with such parts as Sidney Poitier's doctor boss in La porte s'ouvre (1950); a government agent in Dangereuse Mission (1950); an exiled town gambler who returns to warn and assist his town pending an Indian attack in Quand les tambours s'arrêteront (1951); another casino owner who tries to help and falls for weak-willed teacher/gambler Linda Darnell in the romantic film The Lady Pays Off (1951); a marshal after a gang of claim jumpers in the Audie Murphy western Duel sans merci (1952); a sheriff battling Indians in Soulèvement en Arizona (1953); and a plant engineer whose family his threatened by disgruntled ex-employee Vic Morrow in Hell's Five Hours (1958).
McNally made a notably adjustment to TV in the late 1950's with such anthologies as "Lux Video Theatre," "Goodyear Playhouse," "Schlitz Playhouse," "Ford Theatre Playhouse," "Zane Grey Theatre" and "Climax!" Into the 1960's he was frequent guest on a number of popular rugged westerns and suspense series including "Wagon Train," "The Texan," "Laramie", "Rawhide", "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour", "The Outer Limits", "Burke's Law", "Ben Casey", "The Big Valley", "Gunsmoke", "Branded", and "Iron Horse." He starred in the short-lived drama series Target: The Corruptors (1961) as a news reporter and earned a brief, recurring part on Match contre la vie (1965). He went on to be seen in such 1970s TV series as "Mission: Impossible", "The Rockford Files", "Medical Story", "Policy Story", "Police Woman", "The F.B.I.", "Starsky & Hutch", and "Charlie's Angels", he was spotted on a 1980s episode of "Fantasy Island" before retiring.
Long married to Rita Wintrich, with whom he had eight children, McNally was a one-time president of the Catholic Actors Guild. He died of heart failure on June 4, 1994, at age 82, at his Beverly Hills home.
Born Horace Vincent McNally on July 29, 1911 in New York City of Irish descent, he attended Fordham University Law School. Like fellow Irish-American performers J. Farrell MacDonald, Pat O'Brien, and Dennis Day, McNally's voice often carried at least the trace of an innate, rather than acquired, working-class/transatlantic Irish accent. He practiced law until the late 1930s when the acting bug finally hit hard. Beginning on the stage, Horace made his Broadway debut in a bit part as a waiter in "The Man Who Killed Lincoln" (1940). This was immediately followed by more prominent roles in the plays "Johnny Belinda" (1940) and "The Wookey" (1941).
MGM took an interest in the nascent actor during the war-era years. Continuing to use his real name of Horace McNally, he appeared in a series of film shorts while moving gradually up the credits ranks with featured roles in such full-length films as Grand Central Murder (1942), The War Against Mrs. Hadley (1942), Les yeux dans les ténèbres (1942), Pour moi et ma mie (1942), Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant (1942), the Tracy/Hepburn drama La flamme sacrée (1942), the Laurel & Hardy comedy Laurel et Hardy chefs d'îlots (1943), Le héros du Pacifique (1943), 30 Secondes sur Tokio (1944), Une romance américaine (1944), and Bewitched (1945).
By 1948, the actor was freelancing and made a strong impression in the Warner Bros. movie version of the Canadian-set Johnny Belinda, l'enfant du silence (1948), playing menacing brute "Locky McCormick", a fisherman who sexually assaults deaf mute Belinda played by Jane Wyman (who won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance), who bears his child. This was a far different role than the doctor part he played years earlier on Broadway. With this movie, Horace also changed his marquee name to Stephen McNally, taking the first name of his then-2-year-old son.
Alternating between anti-heroes and villains, Stephen is best recalled for his sturdy niche of "bad guy" roles. He played a Nazi war criminal pursued by Army agent Dick Powell in the action adventure Légion étrangère (1948); a casino owner who prods Barbara Stanwyck's gambling habit in Une femme joue son bonheur (1949); a foreign terrorist in the historical action pic La bataille des sables (1949); Ida Lupino's murderous husband in L'araignée (1950); a rifle-stealing bully in the James Stewart western Winchester 73 (1950); a gambler who uses his hot-headed brother Jeff Chandler for prizefighting profit in Iron Man (1951); a murderous Austrian count in the swashbuckler Le mystère du château noir (1952); an escaped killer on the lam in Même les assassins tremblent (1953); a paroled gangster out to exact revenge on Dorothy McGuire and her daughter in Ultime sursis (1954); a bank robber in Les inconnus dans la ville (1955); an avenging ranch hand in La loi de la prairie (1956); and a wanted member of the James gang in the western Carrefour de la vengeance (1957).
In his first top-billed role, McNally starred as a decent guy who runs a youth center in an effort to save kids from a life of crime in the dramatic film Graine de faubourg (1949). Other "good guy" leads and second leads came with such parts as Sidney Poitier's doctor boss in La porte s'ouvre (1950); a government agent in Dangereuse Mission (1950); an exiled town gambler who returns to warn and assist his town pending an Indian attack in Quand les tambours s'arrêteront (1951); another casino owner who tries to help and falls for weak-willed teacher/gambler Linda Darnell in the romantic film The Lady Pays Off (1951); a marshal after a gang of claim jumpers in the Audie Murphy western Duel sans merci (1952); a sheriff battling Indians in Soulèvement en Arizona (1953); and a plant engineer whose family his threatened by disgruntled ex-employee Vic Morrow in Hell's Five Hours (1958).
McNally made a notably adjustment to TV in the late 1950's with such anthologies as "Lux Video Theatre," "Goodyear Playhouse," "Schlitz Playhouse," "Ford Theatre Playhouse," "Zane Grey Theatre" and "Climax!" Into the 1960's he was frequent guest on a number of popular rugged westerns and suspense series including "Wagon Train," "The Texan," "Laramie", "Rawhide", "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour", "The Outer Limits", "Burke's Law", "Ben Casey", "The Big Valley", "Gunsmoke", "Branded", and "Iron Horse." He starred in the short-lived drama series Target: The Corruptors (1961) as a news reporter and earned a brief, recurring part on Match contre la vie (1965). He went on to be seen in such 1970s TV series as "Mission: Impossible", "The Rockford Files", "Medical Story", "Policy Story", "Police Woman", "The F.B.I.", "Starsky & Hutch", and "Charlie's Angels", he was spotted on a 1980s episode of "Fantasy Island" before retiring.
Long married to Rita Wintrich, with whom he had eight children, McNally was a one-time president of the Catholic Actors Guild. He died of heart failure on June 4, 1994, at age 82, at his Beverly Hills home.
