In Remembrance: Harold J. Stone

     Harold J. Stone, the square-jawed character actor who worked steadily in film from the mid-1950s to the mid 1970s, has passed away on November 18, 2005 in Woodland Hills, California. He was 92.

     Born Harold Hochstein on March 13, 1913 in New York City, NY, Stone’s family was active in the Jewish theatre. Stone studied medicine at the University of Buffalo, but dropped out when he turned to acting to support his mother. He began his acting career on Broadway in 1939 and would go on to appear in five plays over the next six years before making an inauspicious film debut in an unbilled role in The Blue Dahlia (1946). Stone returned to stage acting, making occasional television appearances. It would be ten years before he would make another film.

     In 1956, Stone returned to the silver screen, appearing in back-to-back pictures about boxing- The Harder They Fall, with Humphrey Bogart and Somebody Up There Likes Me. He also appeared in a supporting role in the Alfred Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man.

     For the majority of his career, Stone continued to appear in meaty supporting roles in such films as the noir House Of Numbers, The Invisible Boy (both 1957), Spartacus (1960), X: The Man With The X-Ray Eyes (1963), The Greatest Story Ever Told, Girl Happy (both 1965), The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967) and Pickup On 101 (1972). Stone worked with comic actor and director Jerry Lewis on three comedies – The Big Mouth (1967), Which Way To The Front? (1970) and Hardly Working (1980) – during which time the actor stated that he and Lewis became good friends.

     Stone also worked extensively in television, making over 150 appearances in such series as Gunsmoke, Have Gun, Will Travel, 77 Sunset Strip, Rawhide, Route 66, The Untouchables, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, Gilligan’s Island, I Spy, Hogan’s Heroes, Mission: Impossible, Barney Miller and Lou Grant.