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- Actor
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Mean, miserly and miserable-looking, they didn't come packaged with a more annoying and irksome bow than Charles Lane. Glimpsing even a bent smile from this unending sourpuss was extremely rare, unless one perhaps caught him in a moment of insidious glee after carrying out one of his many nefarious schemes. Certainly not a man's man on film or TV by any stretch, Lane was a character's character. An omnipresent face in hundreds of movies and TV sitcoms, the scrawny, scowling, beady-eyed, beak-nosed killjoy who usually could be found peering disdainfully over a pair of specs, brought out many a comic moment simply by dampening the spirit of his nemesis. Whether a Grinch-like rent collector, IRS agent, judge, doctor, salesman, reporter, inspector or neighbor from hell, Lane made a comfortable acting niche for himself making life wretched for someone somewhere.
He was born Charles Gerstle Levison on January 26, 1905 in San Francisco and was actually one of the last survivors of that city's famous 1906 earthquake. He started out his working-class existence selling insurance but that soon changed. After dabbling here and there in various theatre shows, he was prodded by a friend, director Irving Pichel, to consider acting as a profession. In 1928 he joined the Pasadena Playhouse company, which, at the time, had built up a solid reputation for training stage actors for the cinema. While there he performed in scores of classical and contemporary plays. He made his film debut anonymously as a hotel clerk in Smart Money (1931) starring Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney and was one of the first to join the Screen Actor's Guild. He typically performed many of his early atmospheric roles without screen credit and at a cost of $35 per day, but he always managed to seize the moment with whatever brief bit he happened to be in. People always remembered that face and raspy drone of a voice. He appeared in so many pictures (in 1933 alone he made 23 films!), that he would occasionally go out and treat himself to a movie only to find himself on screen, forgetting completely that he had done a role in the film. By 1947 the popular character actor was making $750 a week.
Among his scores of cookie-cutter crank roles, Lane was in top form as the stage manager in Twentieth Century (1934); the Internal Revenue Service agent in You Can't Take It with You (1938); the newsman in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939); the rent collector in It's a Wonderful Life (1946); the recurring role of Doc Jed Prouty, in the "Ellery Queen" film series of the 1940s, and as the draft board driver in No Time for Sergeants (1958). A minor mainstay for Frank Capra, the famed director utilized the actor's services for nine of his finest films, including a few of the aforementioned plus Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) and State of the Union (1948).
Lane's career was interrupted for a time serving in the Coast Guard during WWII. In post-war years, he found TV quite welcoming, settling there as well for well over four decades. Practically every week during the 1950s and 1960s, one could find him displaying somewhere his patented "slow burn" on a popular sitcom - Topper (1953), The Real McCoys (1957), The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959), Mister Ed (1961), Bewitched (1964), Get Smart (1965), Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964), The Munsters (1964), Green Acres (1965), The Flying Nun (1967) and Maude (1972). He hassled the best sitcom stars of the day, notably Lucille Ball (an old friend from the RKO days with whom he worked multiple times), Andy Griffith and Danny Thomas. Recurring roles on Dennis the Menace (1959), The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) and Soap (1977) made him just as familiar to young and old alike. Tops on the list had to be his crusty railroad exec Homer Bedloe who periodically caused bucolic bedlam with his nefarious schemes to shut down the Hooterville Cannonball on Petticoat Junction (1963). He could also play it straightforward and serious as demonstrated by his work in The Twilight Zone (1959), Perry Mason (1957), Little House on the Prairie (1974) and L.A. Law (1986).
A benevolent gent in real life, Lane was seen less and less as time went by. One memorable role in his twilight years was as the rueful child pediatrician who chose to overlook the warning signs of child abuse in the excellent TV movie Sybil (1976). One of Lane's last on-screen roles was in the TV-movie remake of The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1995) at age 90. Just before his death he was working on a documentary on his long career entitled "You Know the Face".
Cinematically speaking, perhaps the good ones do die young, for the irascible Lane lived to be 102 years old. He died peacefully at his Brentwood, California home, outliving his wife of 71 years, former actress Ruth Covell, who died in 2002. A daughter, a son and a granddaughter all survived him.- Music Department
- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
Charles Lane is a classical singer (tenor) and actor, known for The Heart of No Place (2009) and The Giaour. Charles began his musical education on the piano bench with his first music teacher: his mother. He studied at the University of California at San Diego and California Institute of the Arts, earning a BFA and an MFA in Vocal Performance. Charles has been a member of the L.A. Opera chorus and the Los Angeles Master Chorale for over 20 years and has been soloist with both ensembles. His wide-ranging performance repertoire includes musical theater, cabaret, jazz, art song and opera. He is also a studio singer and can be heard on many film soundtracks. Charles has had the distinction of holding the post of Cantor at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels since its dedication in 2002.- Actor
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- Writer
Charles Lane, with a host of awards and credits to his name, is a force to be reckoned with. Born in New York's South Bronx in 1953 and inspired by Hitchcock films, Lane knew early in his childhood what his true calling was. His passion for film transpired when while in junior high he made his first film, a spy spoof, with a Super-8 camera his father had given him for Christmas. Lane furthered this pursuit with his enrollment for a film degree at State University of New York at Purchase. During his years in college Charles Lane wrote and directed A Place in Time (1977), a short that won the Student Academy Award. However, Lane grew up in a time when the prospects for African American filmmakers were limited, but during the 1980s a revival for black films that strayed away from the blaxploitation features arose. Then after a brief inspirational conversation with a homeless man on his way back from a boxing match, Lane created his launching vehicle to filmmaking history, Sidewalk Stories (1989) (1989). This poignant comedy examined homelessness through the eyes of a street artist played charmingly by Lane himself. Shot on a low budget and plagued with time constraints to meet film submission deadlines 'Sidewalk Stories' was shot in 15 days. The movie was received favorable by critics worldwide, propelling Charles Lane in the forefront of American filmmaking. 'Sidewalk Stories' almost not making the Cannes deadline walked away with the prestigious Prix du Public and a record 12 minute ovation. The success of Sidewalk Stories led to multiple film contracts with Island pictures and Disney's Touchstone. Touchstone proposed a two-picture arrangement, beginning with the feature-length film True Identity (1991). Released in 1991, True Identity was adapted from Andy Breckman's sketch "White Like Me," which was originally conceived for a segment by comedian Eddie Murphy on NBC's popular television show Saturday Night Live. 'True Identity' is a tale of an unemployed black actor who dons a white face to escape a mobster's death threat. True Identity featured British comedian Lenny Henry, Oscar award nominee Frank Langella, Anne Marie Johnson and the late J.T. Walsh. An underrated performance by Lenny Henry who in the film dubbed a series of American accents that matched his fine comedic timing with Lane's satirical story telling. Lane began work on several projects. The Blue Hour, "a contemporary adaptation of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice [in which Orpheus, whose musical gifts could tame wild beasts, descends to Hell to bring back his dead wife, Eurydice] and Inertia, an "action-comedy-romantic-thriller" were both in production by the spring of 1992.- Charles Lane was born on 25 January 1869 in Madison, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), Sadie Thompson (1928) and The Canary Murder Case (1929). He died on 17 October 1945 in Van Nuys, California, USA.
- Music Department
- Additional Crew
Charles Lane is known for The Jewish Americans (2008).- Charles Lane is known for The World Through the Eyes of Children (1975).
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Charles William Lane is known for We Are the Apocalypse ! (2021).- Editor
- Animation Department
- Producer
Charles Lane is known for Something About John, Woodstock: A Snapshot in Time and The Urban Food Chain (2017).- Camera and Electrical Department
- Sound Department
- Composer
Charles Lane is known for Overgrown (2021), The Third Saturday in October (2022) and Seal the Deal (2021).- Music Department
- Composer
- Additional Crew
- Additional Crew
Charles Lane is known for Star Trek: Birth of the Federation (1999).- Actor
- Additional Crew
Gregory Charles Lane is known for Deadfall: Ground Zero (2018), The Jesus Freak (2017) and Queen of the South (2016).- Charles E. Lane was born on 21 November 1984 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA.
- Actor
- Cinematographer
- Editorial Department
Charles E. Lane is known for Love or Nothing at All (2014), Captive Audience (2015) and Fire Power (2015).- Camera and Electrical Department
Charles Lane is known for The Boy Outside (2023).- Cinematographer
- Editor
- Camera and Electrical Department
Joshua Charles Lane is known for Collect Call (2022), Dead Tone (2023) and Dimensional Disarray (2023).- Producer
- Director
- Writer
Charles Lane is known for The Hunt with John Walsh (2014), Deadly Sins (2012) and Countdown to the Oscars, Live! (2018).