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TOMBSTONE TRIBUTES |
Lance Fuller
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Kentucky-born Lance Fuller was one of the last of the breed of young contract players who populated studio films of the '40s and '50s. Strikingly handsome, Fuller was placed under contract to Universal in the early 1950s and was immediately cast in several large-scale Westerns including Taza - Son of Cochise opposite Rock Hudson and George Sherman's War Arrow with Jeff Chandler and Maureen O'Hara. That same year (1954), veteran director Alan Dwan cast the part French and part Cherokee Indian actor in Cattle Queen of Montana with Ronald Regan. Fuller was also directed by Roger Corman in Oklahoma Woman and the dubious Ron Ormond in Frontier Woman. His path even crossed Ed Wood's when he played the young gorilla-groom in The Bride and the Beast, scripted by Wood. Fuller rode the trails in dozens of Western television shows like 26 Men and Laredo, but for every kid who jumped up and down in his seat at a Saturday matinee, Lance Fuller will always be Brak, the evil alien sidekick to Jeff Morrow in Joe Newman's wonderful This Island Earth. Like Russell Johnson, Grant Williams and dozens of others, Lance Fuller was one of the last of his breed: the solid utility-actor who bolstered one film after another with his work. |
