Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Jr. was an American actor who starred in a number of television
series and appeared in more than 150 feature films.
He was the father of actors Beau Bridges and Jeff Bridges.
Early life Bridges was born in San Leandro, California,
the son of Harriet Evelyn and Lloyd Vernet Bridges, Sr., who was involved in the California
hotel business and once owned a movie theater.
His parents were both natives of Kansas, and had English ancestry.
Bridges graduated from Petaluma High School in 1931.
He studied political science at UCLA, where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.
Career Bridges made his Broadway debut in 1939 in
a production of Shakespeare's Othello.
In 1941, he joined the stock company at Columbia Pictures, where he played small roles in features
and short subjects.
He left Columbia Pictures to enlist in the U.S. Coast Guard.
Following World War II, he returned to film acting.
He was later a member of U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, 11th District and did a number
of public service announcements for the Coast Guard.
He was later appointed an honorary commodore.
His sons, actors Beau and Jeff, served in the Coast Guard and Coast Guard Reserve.
He was blacklisted briefly in the 1950s after he admitted to the House Un-American Activities
Committee that he had once been a member of the Actors' Lab, a group with links to the
Communist Party.
He resumed working after being cleared by the FBI, finding his greatest success in television.
Bridges garnered press in 1956 for his emotional performance on live anthology program The
Alcoa Hour, in an episode titled "Tragedy in a Temporary Town", directed by Sidney Lumet.
During the performance, Bridges inadvertently used profanity while ad-libbing.
Although the slip of the tongue generated hundreds of complaints, the episode won a
Robert E. Sherwood Television Award, with Bridges's slip being defended even by some
members of the clergy.
Bridges received an Emmy Award nomination for the role.
Bridges gained wide recognition as Mike Nelson, the main character in the television series
Sea Hunt, created by Ivan Tors, which ran in syndication from 1958–1961.
Following that success, he starred in the eponymous CBS anthology series The Lloyd Bridges
Show, which included appearances by his sons Beau and Jeff.
Producer Gene Roddenberry, who worked with Bridges on "Sea Hunt", reportedly offered
Bridges the role of Captain Kirk on Star Trek before the part went to William Shatner.
In addition, he was a regular cast member in the Rod Serling western series The Loner,
and in the two NBC failures San Francisco International Airport and a Police Story spin-off
Joe Forrester.
Later, he appeared in Paper Dolls and Capital News, both for ABC, and again with Harts of
the West, this time for CBS, a comedy/western set on a dude ranch in Nevada.
Son Beau Bridges co-starred, along with Harley Jane Kozak as Beau's wife, Alison Hart, and
Sean Murray as the oldest Hart son, Zane Grey Hart.
Bridges played significant roles in several mini-series, including Roots, How the West
Was Won and The Blue and the Gray.
For more than forty-five years, Bridges was a frequent guest star on television series.
He received a second Emmy Award nomination four decades after the first when he was nominated
in 1998 for his role as Izzy Mandelbaum on Seinfeld.
He portrayed Commander Cain in the original Battlestar Galactica television series, in
the two-part episode The Living Legend.
His fate was left unanswered, spurring fans to call for his return.
This popularity led to a radically re-imagined Cain character in the 2004 series.
He started as a contract performer for Columbia Pictures, appearing in classics such as A
Walk In The Sun, High Noon, Little Big Horn, and Sahara.
By the end of his career, he had re-invented himself and demonstrated a gifted comedic
talent in such parody films as Airplane!, Hot Shots!, and Jane Austen's Mafia!.
He acted in the role of "The President" in the movie Hot Shots!
Part Deux.
Personal life
Bridges met his wife, Dorothy Bridges in his fraternity; they married in 1938 in New York
City.
They had four children: the actors Beau Bridges and Jeff Bridges; a daughter, Lucinda Louise
Bridges; and another son, Garrett Myles Bridges, who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome on
August 3, 1948.
The actor Jordan Bridges is Beau's son and Lloyd's grandson.
Dorothy and Lloyd exchanged vows again for their 50th wedding anniversary.
A world federalist, Bridges once said, "The devastation caused by war and the pollution
of our environment knows no boundaries.
Only an effective world government could provide sufficient law and have the power to control
these destructive forces."
He was also involved in several organizations, including the American Oceans Campaign and
Heal the Bay, a Los Angeles-based group.
Death On March 10, 1998, Bridges died of natural
causes at the age of 85.
He was married to Dorothy Bridges, from 1938 until his death.
Tributes An episode in the final Seinfeld season was
dedicated to the memory of Lloyd Bridges.
He had played the character of Izzy Mandelbaum in the episodes "The English Patient" in 1997
and "The Blood" later the same year.
Bridges's last film, Jane Austen's Mafia!, was dedicated to him.
In 2011 Bridges was posthumously named as one of six recipients – two of whom are
his sons Beau and Jeff – of the Lone Sailor Award, which honors former Coast Guard servicemen
who have gone on to forge successful careers as civilians.
Filmography Features
Short subjects The Great Glover
They Stooge to Conga A Rookie's Cookie
His Wedding Scare Mr. Whitney Had a Notion
My Daddy Can Lick Your Daddy The World of Inner Space
Wonderful World of Wheels I Am Joe's Heart
Television work Suspense co-star with Arlene Francis in "Her
Last Adventure" Jukebox Jury
Crossroads in "Broadway Trust" with James Dean
Sea Hunt The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
The DuPont Show with June Allyson as Captain Anderson in "Death on the Temple Bay", BSD
series finale The Lloyd Bridges Show
The Eleventh Hour with son Beau, "Cannibal Plants, They Eat You Alive" as Leonard McCarty
Kraft Suspense Theatre The Loner
Mission: Impossible A Case of Libel
Lost Flight Silent Night, Lonely Night
The Silent Gun The Love War
San Francisco International Airport Do You Take This Stranger?
A Tattered Web Deadly Dream
Water World Haunts of the Very Rich
Trouble Comes to Town Crime Club
Death Race Benjamin Franklin
The Whirlwind Police Story
Stowaway to the Moon Cop on the Beat
Joe Forrester Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected episode
"The Force of Evil" Roots
Telethon The Great Wallendas
Shimmering Light GI Diary
Battlestar Galactica Disaster on the Coastliner
East of Eden(1981 miniseries) The Blue and the Gray
Grace Kelly Paper Dolls
Alice in Wonderland North and South
Shining Time Station: 'Tis a Gift Capital News
Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean In The Nick Of Time
The Outer Limits – "The Sandkings" The Other Woman
Dress Gray Seinfeld
References
Further reading Mask and Flippers by Lloyd Bridges and Bill
Barada, "Talk of the Town Donald Forrester
External links
Lloyd Bridges at the Internet Movie Database Lloyd Bridges at the Internet Broadway Database
March–April 2004 – UNITED WORLD, "publication of the Coalition for a Democratic World Government,
News and Views."
Lloyd Bridges at AllMovie Sea Hunt Trivia Guide, Lloyd Bridges from
The Scuba Guy 1935 Yearbook Photo