Лоуренс Добкин: Американдық актер, режиссер және сценарист өмірі мен шығармашылығы

American actor, director and screenwriter (1919–2002)

Lawrence Dobkin (September 16, 1919 – October 28, 2002) was an American television director, character actor and screenwriter whose career spanned seven decades. Dobkin was a prolific performer during the Golden Age of Radio. He narrated the western Broken Arrow (1950). His film performances include Never Fear (1949), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), North by Northwest (1959) and Geronimo (1962). Before the closing credits of each episode of the landmark ABC television network series Naked City (1958–1963), he said, "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."

Lawrence Dobkin was born in New York City.

Dobkin understudied on Broadway. When he returned to network radio he was one of five actors who played the detective Ellery Queen in The Adventures of Ellery Queen. Other radio work included Escape (1947–1954); Gunsmoke (1952–1961); Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar (1956–1960); and the anthology series Lux Radio Theater. "The few of us who are left," Dobkin said of his radio days not long before he died, "keep telling each other that we never had it so good." In the 1957 1958 television season, Dobkin played a director on the CBS sitcom, Mr. Adams and Eve, starring Howard Duff and Ida Lupino as fictitious married actors residing in Beverly Hills, California. He guest starred in 1958 in the first season of ABC's The Donna Reed Show. In 1957, Dobkin appeared in the third episode of the first season of the CBS Television western Have Gun – Will Travel, entitled "The Great Mohave Chase", as the owner of water rights in the small western town of Mohave. In the May 9, 1958 episode of the CBS Television western series Trackdown entitled, "The End of the World", he portrays a con man named Walter Trump who promises to save a town from destruction by building a wall. Internet posts of this episode have gone viral due to its resemblance to real life US President Donald Trump and his controversial policy on immigration. In 1960, Dobkin appeared as Kurt Reynolds in the episode "So Dim the Light" of the CBS anthology series The DuPont Show with June Allyson, and as an escape artist on the run from a possible murder charge in Wanted: Dead or Alive. That same year he played "Esteban Garcia" (a long time friend of Marshal Dillon where things go very wrong) in the TV Western Gunsmoke, in the episode "Don Matteo" (S6E7). He appeared in the David Janssen crime drama series, Richard Diamond, Private Detective. Dobkin appeared in four episodes of The Rifleman playing four different characters, including a heartfelt portrayal of General Philip Sheridan from the American Civil War. He appeared in an episode of The Tab Hunter Show in 1961. In 1964 he narrated the USIS documentary film about the Republican and Democrat conventions called "1964 The Conventions." Often also cast as a villain, Dobkin portrayed gangster Dutch Schultz on ABC's The Untouchables. He appeared on the ABC/Warner Bros. crime drama, The Roaring 20s and in the NBC western with a modern setting, Empire. He was cast as a mass murderer in the 1972 pilot for ABC's The Streets of San Francisco, starring Karl Malden. He guest starred on ABC's The Big Valley, starring Barbara Stanwyck. He received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Drama for his work on the CBS Playhouse episode, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (1967). In 1991, Dobkin appeared in an episode of the television series Night Court as State Supreme Court Justice Welch. In the Star Trek media franchise Dobkin directed the original series episode "Charlie X", and later portrayed the traitorous Klingon ambassador Kell on Star Trek: The Next Generation in the fourth season episode "The Mind's Eye". As a writer, Dobkin created the title character for the 1974 film and the 1977–1978 NBC series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. He began directing for television in 1960, and his work in this area included episodes 1, 9, 10, and 13 of The Munsters (1964), 16 episodes of The Waltons (1972–1981), and an episode of Sara (1976). Dobkin also guest starred on a 1983 episode of Knight Rider.

Dobkin's notable supporting film roles include Twelve O'Clock High (1949), The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), Julius Caesar (1953), The Ten Commandments (1956), The Defiant Ones (1958), Johnny Yuma (1966) and Patton (1970). He had a cameo appearance in the 1954 sci fi thriller Them. In an uncredited performance in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, Dobkin has a memorable line as an intelligence official who remarks on the plight of the hapless protagonist, on the run for murder after being mistaken for a person who doesn't exist: "It's so horribly sad. Why is it I feel like laughing?"

On June 24, 1962, Dobkin married actress Joanna Barnes; they had no children, but he had one daughter, Debra Dobkin, by his first wife, Frances Hope Walker. Dobkin married actress Anne Collings in 1970 and had two children: identical twin daughters, Kristy and Kaela.

On October 28, 2002, Dobkin died of heart failure at age 83 at his Los Angeles home.