Biography
American actor Morris Ankrum graduated from the University of Southern California with a law degree, then went on to an associate professorship in economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Here he founded a collegiate little theatre, eventually turning his hobby into a vocation as a teacher and director at the Pasadena Playhouse. (He was much admired by his students, including such future luminaries as
Robert Preston and
Raymond Burr.) Having already changed his name from Nussbaum to Ankrum for professional reasons, Ankrum was compelled to undergo another name change when he signed a Paramount Pictures contract in the 1930s; in his first films, he was billing as Stephen Morris. Reverting to Morris Ankrum in 1939, the sharp-featured, heavily eyebrowed actor flourished in strong character roles, usually of a villainous nature, throughout the 1940s. By the 1950s, Ankrum had more or less settled into "authority" roles in science-fiction films and TV programs. Among his best known credits in this genre were
Rocketship X-M (1950),
Red Planet Mars (1952),
Flight to Mars (1952),
Invaders From Mars (1953) (do we detect a subtle pattern here?), Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) and
From the Earth to the Moon (1958). The fact that Morris Ankrum played innumerable Army generals was fondly invoked in director
Joe Dante's 1993 comedy
Matinee: the military officer played by
Kevin McCarthy in the film-within-a-film
Mant is named General Ankrum. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide