Berry Kroeger(1912-1991)
- Actor
Born and educated in the well-to-do Alamo Heights area of San Antonio,
Texas, Berry Kroeger first acted in local theatrical productions at the
San Pedro Playhouse. His silky voice seemed tailor-made for a lengthy
career on radio. By 1931, he was active both as announcer and purveyor
of dramatic exploits and crime detection on network serials. After
being signed by CBS in 1936 he carved out a very lucrative career on
the airwaves in anthologies like "Inner Sanctum" and
Orson Welles's "Mystery Theatre of the
Air", in addition to starring as suave private eye "The Falcon" (the
role played on the screen by Tom Conway).
Kroeger made his theatrical bow on Broadway in a 1943 play by
Nunnally Johnson, entitled "The World's
Full of Girls". In the course of the next decade he balanced his radio work with
performing in classical plays opposite stars like
Ingrid Bergman and
Helen Hayes, but did not appear in
the movies until 1948. When he finally did, it was -- invariably -- as
venomous, sneering or smarmy villains. A burly, narrow-eyed and physically
imposing character, he simply oozed menace. As his hair receded and
turned white already in his twenties, he often tended to play men much
older than their years. He tended to be less typecast on the small screen which
permitted him to exhibit another side of his acting range. Kroeger
adroitly parodied his sinister screen personae by caricaturing
Sydney Greenstreet -- whom he somewhat
resembled at this stage of his life -- in an episode of
Get Smart (1965) ('Maxwell Smart,
Private Eye'). Like many other 'professional screen villains', Kroeger
was in private life rather the antithesis of the parts he essayed on
screen.
Texas, Berry Kroeger first acted in local theatrical productions at the
San Pedro Playhouse. His silky voice seemed tailor-made for a lengthy
career on radio. By 1931, he was active both as announcer and purveyor
of dramatic exploits and crime detection on network serials. After
being signed by CBS in 1936 he carved out a very lucrative career on
the airwaves in anthologies like "Inner Sanctum" and
Orson Welles's "Mystery Theatre of the
Air", in addition to starring as suave private eye "The Falcon" (the
role played on the screen by Tom Conway).
Kroeger made his theatrical bow on Broadway in a 1943 play by
Nunnally Johnson, entitled "The World's
Full of Girls". In the course of the next decade he balanced his radio work with
performing in classical plays opposite stars like
Ingrid Bergman and
Helen Hayes, but did not appear in
the movies until 1948. When he finally did, it was -- invariably -- as
venomous, sneering or smarmy villains. A burly, narrow-eyed and physically
imposing character, he simply oozed menace. As his hair receded and
turned white already in his twenties, he often tended to play men much
older than their years. He tended to be less typecast on the small screen which
permitted him to exhibit another side of his acting range. Kroeger
adroitly parodied his sinister screen personae by caricaturing
Sydney Greenstreet -- whom he somewhat
resembled at this stage of his life -- in an episode of
Get Smart (1965) ('Maxwell Smart,
Private Eye'). Like many other 'professional screen villains', Kroeger
was in private life rather the antithesis of the parts he essayed on
screen.