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Bruce Bennett

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Bruce Bennett (Herman Brix)

Bennett, 1940s

Born

Harold Herman Brix


May 19, 1906
DiedFebruary 24, 2007 (aged 100)
Occupations
  • Actor
  • athlete
  • businessman
Years active1931–1973; 1980
Height6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
Spouse

Jeannette C. Braddock

​

​

(m. 1933; died 2000)​

Children2
Signature

Bruce Bennett (Harold Herman Brix, known as Herman Brix until 1939; May 19, 1906 – February 24, 2007) was an American film and television actor who was a college athlete in football and in intercollegiate and international track-and-field competitions.[1] In 1928, he won the silver medal for the shot put at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam. His acting career in film and television spanned more than 40 years.

Early life and Olympics

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Herman Brix at the 1928 Olympics

Harold Herman Brix was born and raised in Tacoma, Washington, where he attended Stadium High School from which he graduated in 1924.[2] He was the fourth of five children born to an immigrant couple from Germany.[citation needed]

Brix played college football at the University of Washington, where he majored in economics. He played in the 1926 Rose Bowl and was a track-and-field star. He won the Silver medal for the shot put in the 1928 Olympic Games.[3] He won four consecutive AAU shot put titles (1928–31), the NCAA title in 1927, and the AAU indoor titles in 1930 and 1932. In 1930, Herman Brix set a world indoor record at 15.61 m (51 ft 3 in). In 1932, he set his personal best at 16.07 m (52 ft 9 in), but failed at the Olympic trials to qualify for the Los Angeles Games.[4]

Early film career as Tarzan

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Brix in the opening credits of the serial The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935)

Herman Brix moved to Los Angeles in 1929 after being invited to compete for the Los Angeles Athletic Club and befriended actor Douglas Fairbanks, who arranged a screen test for him at Paramount.[citation needed]

In 1931, MGM, in adapting author Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan adventures for the screen, selected Brix to play the title character. Brix broke his shoulder filming the 1931 football film Touchdown, so swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller replaced Brix.

Author Burroughs financed his own Tarzan film, The New Adventures of Tarzan, as a Burroughs-Tarzan production. Co-producer Ashton Dearholt, embarking on an expedition to Guatemala, cast Brix as Tarzan. The film began production on location in Guatemala, where the camera captured native scenery and wild animals, with Brix doing his own athletic stunts. The film was completed in Hollywood, where local studios afforded better sound recording.

The finished film was released in 1935 by Burroughs-Tarzan, and offered to theaters as a 12-chapter serial or a seven-reel feature. A second feature, Tarzan and the Green Goddess, was culled from the footage in 1938, with a few new scenes added.

In 1936 Herman Brix signed with independent producer Sam Katzman, whose Victory Pictures specialized in action pictures, Westerns and serials. Brix appeared in eight quickie features and two serials (Shadow of Chinatown cast him opposite Bela Lugosi).

Brix's Victory serials attracted the attention of Republic Pictures, a leading producer of chapter plays. There Brix starred in four cliffhanger adventures: The Lone Ranger, The Fighting Devil Dogs, Hawk of the Wilderness, and Daredevils of the Red Circle.

Name change and film career

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In 1939 Herman Brix, finding himself typecast as Tarzan, joined Columbia Pictures' stock company, under the new screen name of Bruce Bennett. Columbia stock players were usually called upon to appear in anything the studio produced, so Brix was assigned to small parts in action pictures, and incidental roles in the studio's two-reel comedies with The Three Stooges and Buster Keaton. By 1942 he was playing earnest leads in "B" features.

His screen career was interrupted by World War II, when he served in the United States Navy.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Bennett appeared in Sahara (1943), Mildred Pierce (1945), Nora Prentiss (1947), Dark Passage (1947), The Man I Love (1947), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Undertow (1949), Mystery Street (1950), Angels in the Outfield (1951), Sudden Fear (1952), and Strategic Air Command (1955), The Alligator People (1959).[5][3]

Bennett and Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

In 1954, Bennett played William Quantrill, the Confederate guerrilla figure, in an episode of the syndicated television series Stories of the Century. Bennett made five guest appearances on Perry Mason and five episodes of Science Fiction Theatre.

Bennett co-wrote and starred in Fiend of Dope Island (filmed 1959, released 1961).[5]

Personal life and death

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Bennett and his wife Jeannette in 1936

Bennett had two children, Christopher and Christina, by wife Jeannette, who died in 2000. They named their children after his parents.[citation needed]

Bennett became a businessman during the 1960s. He pursued parasailing and skydiving. He last skydived at the age of 96, descending from an altitude of 10,000 feet near Lake Tahoe.[3]

Bennett died at age 100 on February 24, 2007 from complications of a broken hip, three months before his 101st birthday.[6][7]

Selected filmography

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Notes

  1. ^ McLellan, Dennis (February 28, 2007). "Herman Brix, 100; Olympian became actor known as Bruce Bennett". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 2, 2024.
  2. ^ Merryman, Kathleen (September 9, 2006). "From Stadium's halls to the silver screen". The News Tribune. Tacoma, Washington. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  3. ^ a b c Bernstein, Adam (February 28, 2007). "Film Star and Olympian Herman Brix". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved December 15, 2025.
  4. ^ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Herman Brix". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on April 17, 2020.
  5. ^ a b "Bruce Bennett Filmography" Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Retrieved May 21, 2018.
  6. ^ "Olympian and actor Herman Brix dies". Yahoo! News. Associated Press. March 1, 2007. Archived from the original on March 7, 2007. Retrieved March 3, 2007.
  7. ^ WHITE, RUSTY (March 8, 2007). "OBITUARY – HERMAN BRIX aka BRUCE BENNETT - Entertainment Today". entertainmenttoday.net. Retrieved August 2, 2024.

Bibliography