Wheeler Oakman

Born in Washington, DC, in 1890, screen villain "par excellance" Wheeler Oakman got into films in 1912. He specialized in playing villains, but he wasn't just a one-note, mustache-twirling "bad guy"--a tall, solidly-built, distinguished-looking, almost patrician man, he could effectively play cold-blooded mob bosses, slick-talking crooked businessmen, greedy land barons, gregarious bankers who are secretly the head of the local bandit gang, and everything in between. On the other hand, he could play college professors, heroic army officers and tough big-city detectives with equal aplomb. He worked in all genres for just about every studio in town at one time or another, from high dramas at top-ranked MGM to bottom-of-the-barrel exploitation fare from J.D. Kendis. At one time married to silent-screen star Priscilla Dean, he worked almost up until his death--his final role was an uncredited bit in the 1948 serial Superman (1948), and he died of a heart attack in Van Nuys, California, in 1949.