Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (1909-2000) [Gunga Din (1939); The Fighting O'Flynn (1949)]. During World War II Fairbanks became a lieutenant in the British Navy (where he made his way up to captain in 1954). He was posted to Lord Louis Mountbatton's staff where he devised gadgets to confuse the Germans. He later led a commando assault on the Casquet lighthouse on the coast of France. Two months later he conducted a desert raid on Sened Station in North Africa. He took part in the Allies' landing in Sicily and Elba in 1943. He also commanded a detachment of PT boats that sailed toward the coast of France to deceive the Germans about an invasion. He was awarded the Silver Star and the British Distinguished Service Cross.
Peter Falk (1927- ) [Murder, Inc. (1960); Columbo (tv 1971~)]. Falk lost his right eye as a child due to a tumor. In 1945 he tried to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps by memorizing the eye chart so that he could pass the physical. The examiner became suspicious since his right eye didn't move. The Marines would not let him join so he became a cook in the Merchant Marine.
Norman Fell (1924-1998) [Inherit the Wind (1960); The Naked Truth (1992)] was an American TV & film actor most famous for his role as landlord Mr. Roper on the popular sitcom Three's Company and its spin-off, The Ropers. Fell was born to a Jewish family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied drama at Temple University after serving in the Pacific as a tail gunner in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Though he mostly acted on television he also had small roles in several motion pictures including Ocean's Eleven (1960), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), The Graduate (1967), in which he also played a landlord, and Catch-22 (1970). He appeared alongside Ronald Reagan in Reagan's last film, The Killers (1964). Norman Fell died of cancer at the age of 74 in Los Angeles, California, and was interred there at the Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery.
Paul Fix (1901-1983) [Hoodoo Ranch (1926); The Fighting Seabees (1944); The High and the Mighty (1954); To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)], the well-known movie and TV character actor who played "Marshal Micah Torrance" on the TV series "The Rifleman" (1958), was born Peter Paul Fix on March 13, 1901 in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Just-turned-17-year-old he joined the U.S. Navy on March 12, 1918, and spent his state-side service time during World War I in Newport, Rhode Island and Charleston, South Carolina. Fix was assigned as an able-bodied seaman to the troopship U.S.S. Mount Vernon, which was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of France but did not sink as it was run aground. The rest of Fix's naval career was less exciting, and he was demobilized on September 5, 1919.
Joe Flynn (1924-1974) [The Babe Ruth Story (1948); The Strongest Man in the World (1975)] was born in Youngstown, Ohio and after attending Northwestern University, Flynn began his entertainment career as a ventriloquist and as a radio performer. During World War II, he served in the Army's Special Services Branch (formerly the Morale Branch) entertaining the troops in the United States. After the war, Flynn moved to Hollywood. He made his film debut as Joseph Flynn in the bottom-of-the-barrel, beneath-B-picture potboiler The Big Chase (1954), which co-starred Lon Chaney Jr., which he followed up with a part as a priest in The Seven Little Foys (1955) starring Bob Hope.
Henry Fonda (1905-1982) [12 Angry Men (1957); On Golden Pond (1981)]. Fonda enlisted in the U.S. Navy in August 1942. He was stationed on the destroyer USS Satterlee as a quartermaster third class. He was later commissioned a Lt.(j.g.) in Air Combat Intelligence in the Central Pacific.
Glenn Ford (1916-2006) [Blackboard Jungle (1955); The Fastest Gun Alive (1956); Cade's County (tv 1971-72)]. Ford's career was interrupted when he volunteered for duty in WW II with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves. On Dec 13, 1942 he became a photographic specialist with the rank of Sergeant. In March 1943 he went to active duty at the Marine Corps Base in San Diego and later served at Quantico, Virginia and in Europe. During his service he helped build safe houses in France for those hiding from the Nazis. He was honorably discharged from the Marines on Dec 7, 1944. In 1958, he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve and was commissioned as a lieutenant commander. He was promoted to commander in 1963 and captain in 1968. Ford went to Vietnam in 1967 for a short tour as a location scout for combat scenes in a training film entitled Global Marine. He traveled with a combat camera crew from the demilitarized zone south to the Mekong Delta. For his service in Vietnam, the Navy awarded him a Navy Commendation Medal. His WW II decorations are: American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Rifle Marksman Badge, and the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Medal. He retired from the Naval Reserve in the 1970s with the rank of captain. In 1992 France awarded him the French Legion of Honor Medal for his WW II service.
John Ford (1894-1973) (Movie Director) [My Darling Clementine (1946), many John Wayne movies]. Ford enlisted in U.S. Navy and became head of photograpic unit with the rank of commander. He was on the USS Hornet and filmed the departure of Doolittle's Raiders for their Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. Ford was wounded during the Battle of Midway and received a Purple Heart. He moved to the ETO as head of the photographic unit for the Office of Strategic Services. In preparation for D-Day he crossed the English Channel on the USS Plunkett (DD-431) and anchored off Omaha Beach at 0600. He observed the first wave land on the beach from the ship, landing on the beach himself later with a team of US Coast Guard cameramen who filmed the battle from behind the beach obstacles with Ford directing operations. After the war, Ford became a Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy Reserve. -- Ford's war-time footage was used for many of the action scenes in Midway; Tora, Tora, Tora; In Harm's Way; The Longest Day; as well as other films about WWII.
...more next week...