Brandon Iron

Today's featured actor enjoyed an incredibly lengthy career (sixty-seven years!) in movies and on TV (along with some key stage appearances), yet his name doesn't exactly trip off the tongue of your average cinemaphile. Notable in particular for playing imposing villains, including some fearsome Indian chiefs, he nonetheless portrayed a wide variety of roles during his considerable career. His name is Henry Brandon.

At birth, on June 8th, 1912 in Berlin, Germany, his name was Heinrich von Kleinbach. He wouldn't know Germany as a homeland, however, because his parents fled to The United States while he was still a baby, avoiding the onset of WWI which had been brewing up to that time. This land of freedom and opportunity allowed him to grow up and attend Stanford University, immersing himself in the American way of life by joining a fraternity and augmenting his first name to Henry.

By the early-1930s, he was out in California, working as an actor at the Pasadena Community Playhouse and working as an extra in such films as the Cecil B. Demille epic Sign of the Cross (1932.) Before long, however, he was on his way to success in the cinema. In 1934, after being spotted onstage in The Drunkard, he landed the featured role of the cretinous, craggy Silas Barnaby in Laurel & Hardy's adaptation of Babes in Toyland.

It's a curious thing that a mere twenty-two year-old would be selected to portray this crotchety, nefarious character, but it's because he'd been heavily aged in The Drunkard and the casting agent hadn't realized it! Once they figured out how to adjust his makeup for the camera versus the stage, this disparity was noted at the time though publicity photos like the one at left, in which his face is shown with one half young and handsome and other half aged and crusty.

Despite the movie's success, this didn't lead immediately to more film work, perhaps due to the fact that he was unrecognizable from it! He continued to work on stage until 1936 when he was put to work in movies again, this time with a new name, Henry Brandon. That year alone, he did The Preview Murder Mystery (bizarrely made up and playing in a parody of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1920, as seen here), Big Brown Eyes, Killer at Large and had roles in two Technicolor classics, The Garden of Allah (with Charles Boyer, Marlene Dietrich and Basil Rathbone - towering Brandon is seen below behind Dietrich) and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (with Fred MacMurray and Sylvia Sidney.)

A common scenario for burgeoning actors of this time would be obtaining featured roles in small ("B") films and/or serials (in which a storyline played out in limited segments, usually with a cliffhanger ending, over the course of many weeks) while occasionally landing a bit part in an "A" feature. Thus, Brandon might be the key villain in a Jungle Jim (1937) serial one minute (see below) and then have a walk-on in a Greta Garbo picture like Conquest (1938) or a big western like Wells Fargo (1938) the next. He was an opera impressario (as seen above left) in the short Our Gang Follies of 1938 (1937.)

This continued through 1939 as he played a henchman in a Buck Rogers serial (seen here in wacky headgear next to humpy Buster Crabbe!) balanced with a small role (as a French Foreign Legion deserter) in the famous Gary Cooper war drama Beau Geste (shown below.)

In 1940, Brandon landed what would be one his more bizarre roles (though it was common at the time for Caucasian actors to portray Asian characters.) He had the title role in the well-produced serial Drums of Fun Manchu. His evil character is bent on world conquest.

Despite its being considered one of the best serials ever produced, there was an issue with it (besides the then- accepted make-up) in that the U.S. State Department wanted no further episodes generated after our entry into WWII lest the Chinese - allies against Japan - take offense at the leading character's quest for world domination.
 

Brandon was hardly idle, however. In 1940 alone, he appeared in eight other movies in addition to the Fu Manchu serial! Though he was working alongside stars such as Roy Rogers, Boris Karloff, Louis Hayward and others, none of these pictures was of any particular notability or consequence. Early in 1941, he headed to Broadway to work opposite Helen Twelvetrees in the play Boudoir, though it quickly folded.

Thus he appeared in six more films that year, including Underground (with Jeffrey Lynn), The Shepherd of the the Hills (with John Wayne) and The Corsican Brothers (with Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) In 1942, he only made one film, a tiny part in the low-budget Night in New Orleans.

Things were looking up, though. 1943 saw the excellent WWII drama Edge of Darkness, starring Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan as members of the resistance in occupied German-occupied Norway. The stellar cast also included Walter Huston, Ruth Gordon and Judith Anderson.

Brandon played a Nazi officer (with a secret) who comes to the small fishing village depicted in the story and is soon involved in various intrigues, some of which include pretty Nancy Coleman. The movie was lavishly appointed and his part was considerable though, amazingly enough, uncredited onscreen!

Brandon was off-screen for several years after this, having headed back to New York for another Broadway show, this one called Army Play-By Play, with mostly all actors (yet not Brandon) who were also enlisted men or officers, directed by "Sergeant" Arthur O'Connell. What led to the gap in his resume from 1943 - 1947 I honestly cannot say. Perhaps stage work in New York or elsewhere? But he was back (in another small role) as a "Chinese Junk Captain" in the Nelson Eddy frontier musical Northwest Passage (1947.) Then 1948 brought six more films including Joan of Arc (with Ingrid Bergman), The Paleface (with Bob Hope, in which Brandon played an Indian Medicine Man) and Wake of the Red Witch (with John Wayne.) In the latter, Brandon was a bronzed, sarong-clad islander who tends to Wayne after The Duke fights a huge octopus underwater!

Though he did two films in 1949 (The Fighting O'Flynn with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Tarzan's Magic Fountain with Lex Barker), he also made two important appearances on Broadway that year. First came Medea, playing Jason to Dame Judith Anderson's title role. Then he was Orsino in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. He also made his TV debut in 1949 with shows like The Clock, Suspense (as seen here with the famed Stella Adler) and, later, Lights Out.


1951 saw him in both westerns, such as Cattle Drive (with Joel McCrea), and colorful sword & sandal adventures like The Golden Horde (with Ann Blyth) and The Flame of Araby (with Maureen O'Hara and Jeff Chandler.)

A balance of TV and movie parts marked 1952 as he did Scarlet Angel (with Rock Hudson and Yvonne DeCarlo) and Wagons West (with Rod Cameron) as well as series like Gruen Guild Theater, Cavalcade of America and Family Theatre (with Leif Erickson, Ruth Hussey and an up and comer making his debut by the name of James Dean!)

1953 wound up a busy year for Brandon as he took part in seven different movies from playing a cop in War of the Worlds to a native chief in Tarzan and the She-Devil. He also worked in War Arrow (with Maureen O'Hara and Jeff Chandler again, seen here with Chandler), Pony Express (with Charlton Heston) and two Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis comedies, Scared Stiff and The Caddy.

He had a small role in Bob Hope's Casanova's Big Night (1954), but then enjoyed a more substantial part in the Gary Cooper-Burt Lancaster color western Vera Cruz. In this, he played a severe looking baddie (with his usual curls closely cropped away) who tag teams with Cesar Romero to obtain the gold that the lead actors are trying to transport on Denise Darcel's behalf.

His rather raspy voice and severe features were just right for dangerous, threatening types, though his pale blue eyes tempered the fero- ciousness slightly (though certainly not diminishing any icy quality that might be present!)

He guest-starred on Stories of the Century (1955) as a very dangerous cattle rustler. Even though he was playing a bad guy, TV series like this gave him a chance to demonstrate some romance on screen (and occasionally the lighting caught him in a way that gave him a handsome appearance not unlike James Daly or Cliff Robertson.)

Brandon's initial good looks had long-since hardened into a more curt appearance, which only furthered his casting in villainous or exotic/ethnic parts. After a small role in Lady Godiva of Coventry (1955), looking handsome with a full beard, he would land one of his most memorable parts, perhaps the one he's most remembered for (and in my case, the one that makes him a favorite in Poseidon's Underworld!)

Even at this point, after more than twenty years in the business, Brandon was still winding up with smallish roles. He had a bit in The Ten Commandments (1956) and a supporting (villainous) part in Robert Mitchum's Mexican-set Bandido (1956) and provided problems for Dana Andrews' peace-seeking character in Comanche (1956) as the Indian warrior Black Cloud.

It was his remaining 1956 film, though, which gave him his claim to classic movie fame. In the near- legendary John Ford western The Searchers, Brandon (unlikely as it may be for a blue-eyed Caucasian) played Scar, a fearsome, vengeful chief who has kidnapped and slaughtered a number of settlers who've made their way into his Texas land.

When he kills John Wayne's brother, sister-in-law and others and has taken Wayne's two nieces into captivity, it sets off a years-long quest in which Wayne and his nephew Jeffrey Hunter relentlessly track Brandon in order to try to retrieve the girls. At 6'5", Brandon is simultaneously imposing, threatening, savage and sexy in the role.

I daresay that he is unfor- gettable to those who've seen the movie, even though it isn't a role with lots of screen time (not to mention dialogue!) and, though it was customary at the time, he is not really Native American in physical appearance. He was just memorably dangerous and even possessing sexual threat.

Regardless of the fact that he was not a household name, nor achieved any particular notoriety for his work, Brandon was as busy as ever. He made at least eight TV appearances in 1957 on shows like Robert Montgomery Presents (with Claire Bloom), M Squad, The Restless Gun and Have Gun, Will Travel. He also worked in the films Omar Khayyam with Cornel Wilde and had a decent size role in The Land Unknown with Jock Mahoney, about a tropical area discovered by Antarctic explorers! Now forty-five, he still possessed a trim, fit physique that was put on display as seen here. Earlier that year he'd starred in an off-Broadway production of The Lady's Not for Burning (which also included Peter Falk.)

In 1958, Brandon had a small role in The Buccaneer, produced by Cecil B. DeMille, for whom he'd first worked way back in 1932 (and again in Command- ments.) He also popped up in the comedy smash Auntie Mame, playing Acacius Page, controversial schoolteacher to Rosalind Russell's treasured nephew. The following year, he had a co-starring role in the low-budget, swamp-set smuggling movie Okefenokee (1959.)

His TV output began to outweigh the film work. Despite roles in The Big Fisherman (1959) and the James Stewart-Richard Widmark western Two Rode Together (1961), in which he again played a dangerous Indian chief, he was more often seen as a guest on shows like The Rebel,  Lawman, Bronco, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, 77 Sunset Strip and The Outer Limits, opposite Robert Duvall, as seen below.

As the early-'60s continued, Brandon found himself in the occasional movie (such as Captain Sinbad, 1963), but most often on TV where he played exotic types, military men or Indians on shows such as Adventures in Paradise, F Troop, Mr. Ed, Daniel Boone, Combat! or The Virginian. In 1969, he played a sadistic Nazi taking over where Hitler left off in The Search for the Evil One. He's seen below in a 1969 installment of Mission: Impossible as an Arab, ever the go-to man for anyone ethnic despite his blue eyes!

There were several low-budget movies in which Brandon had a supporting role. He played a holy man in Gentle Savage (1973), about Native American William Smith being wrongly accused of rape and murder, joined the cast of the little-known So Long, Blue Boy (1973), which focused on a young homosexual man, When the North Wind Blows (1974), as an aging fur trapper, and The Manhandlers (1974), a grindhouse crime drama about a massage parlor!

Still, Brandon occasionally landed supporting parts in better pictures such as Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and Mel Brooks' To Be or Not to Be (1983), in which he was once more cast as a Nazi. He also took part in the low-budget, yet star-filled, Mission to Glory: A True Story (1977), about Father Kino, who built churches for Indians in the late-1600s. Among the cast were Richard Egan, Ricardo Montalban, Cesar Romero, Rory Calhoun, John Ireland and Aldo Ray!

In 1987, he joined the fraternity of stars at or near the end of their career shelf life who worked on Murder, She Wrote. Brandon's very last part was in a campy, low-budget science fiction movie called Wizards of the Lost Kingdon II (1989.) (You mean you don't have Bo Svenson's Wizards of the Lost Kingdom (1985) in your DVD library?? LOL) At least his face was prominently featured on the film's poster.

Prior to his death in 1990, Brandon made appear- ances at Laurel & Hardy festivals, to relay tales of his time with them during Babes in Toyland. He also appeared in a round table discussion on the infamously loony The Joe Franklin Show, alongside Cornel Wilde, Edie Adams, Corinne Calvet and his longtime friend and occasional costar Cesar Romero.

I haven't delved into Brandon's personal life in this tribute, but it wasn't without interest. Brandon, regardless of the gravelly voice, rough-hewn features, intense masculinity and strong physicality he brought to his more than six-decade-long career was a homosexual. I mention these traits not that they are exclusive from homosexuality, but simply because it was not as easy for audiences to immediately label him as such from his "carriage and demeanor," as the quote goes.

He, in fact, enjoyed a lengthy relationship with the sixteen years younger Mark Herron, a middlingly successful actor turned promoter who rose to fame for another reason entirely. Already living with Brandon as a couple (perhaps having met during 1957's stage production of The Lady's Not for Burning?), he departed on a concert tour with Judy Garland and before it was over the two were married! Herron became the fourth of her five husbands (1965-1967.) Despite the length of the union, it really only lasted about five months, though they'd been a couple of sorts (and, in fact, married illegally on a prior occasion because she was still wed to Sid Luft before their legal nuptials came along.)

Later, Garland claimed that the marriage had never been consum- mated. It might just be so. Herron was preoccupied with his step son-in-law! Garland's daughter Liza Minnelli was wed to gyrating singer-songwriter Peter Allen, who Herron had "discovered" while in Australia with Garland. For a time, Allen and his performing partner Chris Ball (billed as The Allen Brothers) were an opening act for the famed singer (and appeared with her on TV a few times.) After Minnelli caught Allen and Herron in the sack, Herron was sacked from Garland's life, though Minnelli held onto Allen until 1974.

Herron returned to Henry Brandon, with whom he lived until Brandon's death in 1990 at the age of seventy-seven from a heart attack. (They actually worked on one film together, 1979's Hollywood Knight, about a young male prostitute! Keenan Wynn, John Crawford and Timothy Carey also appeared. I don't have a pic of Brandon, but the back of the - re-named - video box is shown below.) Herron died in 1996 of cancer at the age of sixty-seven.

Brandon had never attained a high level of fame, but he stayed busy in movies, on stage and on television, even returning to his favorite old stage play The Drunkard in the mid-1980s, when old-age makeup was no longer necessary. Having spent much of his life portraying hissable, trouble-making villains, he was in fact known to be a genial, pleasant and friendly person in real life. Whenever he appears on-screen, it's a safe bet that either intensity or creativity in the acting will be soon to follow.