Ben Wright

Ben Wright Recollections By His Good Friend Parley Baer

15th May 1915 - 2nd July 1989

I was going to write an article about Ben Wright to remember him on the 18th anniversary of his death when I came across this wonderful recording before a Sherlock Holmes episode in which Parley Baer remembers his good friend Ben. I guess that the recording must have been after 1989 and is introducing two Sherlock Holmes episodes including the one from March 10th, 1947 in which Ben Wright stepped in to the leading role when Tom Conway was suffering from a bad cold. We are lucky to be able to add the episode to RUSC entitled Affair Of The Ancient Egyptian Curse. Parley Baer believes that it was Ben's performance on that episode which led the producers of the 1950's series of Sherlock Holmes to choose Ben Wright for the leading role. 

Here then is what Parley Baer has to say in his recollections of his good friend:

Ben had already been an established actor on the British stage before he came to America in 1947. A graduate of RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts Ben was a brilliant dialectician and over the years he was able to use that talent in many of the dramatic roles he played on radio, television and in motion pictures.

Ben quickly established himself as a radio actor. In fact his fist performances were on the Sherlock Holmes series. He went on to become a much wanted regularly employed actor on such shows as, Suspense, Escape, Gunsmoke and Frontier Gentleman and had running part of Hey Boy, Paladin's Chinese house boy on radio's Have Gun Will Travel.

He was a quiet and engaging gentleman and was easy to work with. He had a wonderful dry and witty sense of humor and poured his heart in to every role. He also gave memorable performances in such films as Judgement at Nuremberg (1961) opposite Spencer Tracy, The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959) as Gary Coopers salvage ship partner and as the evil plain clothed nazi who chases the Von Trap family across the border in The Sound of Music (1965).

Parley Bear goes on to say that one time when he and Ben were having a casual conversion Ben mentioned that he regretted only one thing as an actor, that he'd never had a chance to do comedy. He was always being taken for one of the better dramatic character actors and that bugged him.

To demonstrate how bright Ben was Parley says he was the only man he knew to do the New York Times crossword puzzles with a ballpoint pen. Ben was not just an actor he was also a writer and actually penned the radio script Affair at Mandrake for the Escape radio series and he played opposite John Dehner on that show. And as if that weren't enough, you should hear Ben's tour de force performance in Escape's Diary of a Madman. Here Ben plays a nazi officer trapped in the African desert with his men. In one half hour Ben takes the officer from a leader of his men to a raving madman on the brink of insanity, a slow and brilliant transition that displays all of Ben's innate abilities as an actor.

In 1949 Ben portrayed Inspector Collins in Escape's adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost Special. Ben portrayed Inspector Collins with an almost Sherlock Holmesian quality.

I hope that you enjoy all of the shows highlighted above. Unfortunately we don't have any of the 1950's series of Sherlock Holmes starring Ben Wright but if you have any that you would like to share on RUSC then please contact ned@rusc.com. 

To hear more stories featuring Ben Wright then simply enter his name in power search in RUSC and you will be led to a plethora of shows featuring this great old-time-radio actor. 

Happy listening my friends,