Rex Reason
Rex Reason was a German-born actor best known for his costarring role in the 1955 science fiction film This Island Earth. He played Dr. Cal Meacham, a scientist and jet pilot, who is recruited by a mysterious group of scientists for a special research project.
Reason also appeared in the films The Creature Walks Among Us, another sci-fi/horror drama; Salome, starring Rita Hayworth; O’Rourke of the Royal Mounted; Lady Godiva of Coventry, starring Maureen O’Hara and Band of Angels, starring Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo and Sidney Poitier. He also toplined 1957’s Badlands of Montana and 1958’s Thundering Jets.
Additionally, he appeared on television, including roles on The Millionaire, Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers, The Ford Television Theatre, Conflict, The Web, Trackdown, 77 Sunset Strip, Bronco, Bourbon Street Beat, Sugarfoot, The Alaskans, Perry Mason, G.E. True and Wagon Train.
From 1957 to 1959, he played the starring role on the western series Man Without a Gun. Set in Yellowstone, Wyoming, in the late 19th century, the series centered around the character Adam MacLean, publisher and chief reporter for the Yellowstone Sentinel. The series lasted until 1959, with Reason appearing on 51 episodes in all.
Rex Reason was a German-born actor best known for his costarring role in the 1955 science fiction film This Island Earth. He played Dr. Cal Meacham, a scientist and jet pilot, who is recruited by a mysterious group of scientists for a special research project.
Reason also appeared in the films The Creature Walks Among Us, another sci-fi/horror drama; Salome, starring Rita Hayworth; O’Rourke of the Royal Mounted; Lady Godiva of Coventry, starring Maureen O’Hara and Band of Angels, starring Clark Gable, Yvonne De Carlo and Sidney Poitier. He also toplined 1957’s Badlands of Montana and 1958’s Thundering Jets.
Additionally, he appeared on television, including roles on The Millionaire, Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers, The Ford Television Theatre, Conflict, The Web, Trackdown, 77 Sunset Strip, Bronco, Bourbon Street Beat, Sugarfoot, The Alaskans, Perry Mason, G.E. True and Wagon Train.
From 1957 to 1959, he played the starring role on the western series Man Without a Gun. Set in Yellowstone, Wyoming, in the late 19th century, the series centered around the character Adam MacLean, publisher and chief reporter for the Yellowstone Sentinel. The series lasted until 1959, with Reason appearing on 51 episodes in all.
In the early 1960s he held another recurring role, on the series The Roaring 20’s, which followed the adventures of a newspaper reporter (Dorothy Provine) covering Chicago’s stories of cops and gangsters. Reason played Scott Norris, a reporter for the fictitious New York Record.
Raised in Los Angeles, Reason began his stage career at the Pasadena Playhouse. His younger brother, Rhodes Reason (both using their real names), was also an actor. The elder Reason was discovered by a talent scout and was soon cast in the World War II drama Storm Over Tibet as the lead. He played opposite Diana Douglas, former wifr of actor Kirk Douglas and mother to actor Michael Douglas.
In 1963, Reason quit show business and later became a real estate broker.
He died November 19, 2015, in Walnut, California. He was 86.
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