Whit Bissell was born in New York City in 1909. Bissell’s father was a surgeon. Whit attended the Allen-Stevenson School and the Dalton School in New York City. Bissell attended the University of North Carolina.
Bissell worked in Broadway productions and served in the Army Air Forces. He was also an actor in military productions while serving.
He traveled to Hollywood in the 1940s, and by the time he retired he had appeared in over 300 movies and TV series. Sometimes it seems like he is in every movie. Just there moving steadily along and never standing out. However, his performance was always solid. He may be best known for playing the mad scientist who turned Michael Landon into a monster in the 1957 cult classic film I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). He was also in I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1967). Whit Bissell specialized in playing authority figures such as doctors, military officers, and other authority figures. One of his standout roles was as a lovesick convict in the harsh Film-Noir movie Brute Force (1947). He was familiar on television in “Bachelor Father” from 1957 to 1960 and “The Time Tunnel” from 1966 to 1967 where he played the commanding general. He was in only one “Star Trek” episode but it was “The Trouble with Tribbles” in 1967.
Whit Bissell served on the Screen Actors Guild board of directors for 18 years and represented the actor’s branch in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences board of governors. He died in 1996 from Parkinson’s disease.
Reviewed Whit Bissell Films
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