Rex Reason, Star of Sci-Fi Classic ‘This Island Earth,’ Dies at 86
By Sam Roberts NY Times 11/24/2015
Rex Reason, a dashing movie star who played opposite Rita Hayworth and Clark Gable and starred in science fiction movies and two television series, died on Thursday at his home in Walnut, Calif., in Los Angeles County. He was 86.
The cause was bladder cancer, his wife, Shirley, said.
Six feet 2 inches tall and distinguished by a deep baritone voice, Mr. Reason played Cal Meacham, the heroic scientist in the 1955 science fiction film “ This Island Earth,” which was hailed for its color cinematography and technical effects and is paid a brief homage in a scene in “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.” He appeared with Hayworth in “ Salome” in 1953 and with Gable and Sidney Poitier in “ Band of Angels” in 1957. In 1956 he played Dr. Thomas Morgan in “ The Creature Walks Among Us,” the last installment in the last of the so-called Gill Man trilogy.
Mr. Reason also starred as a newspaperman in the TV western called “Man Without a Gun” in the late 1950s and a TV drama set in Prohibition-era New York, “The Roaring Twenties,” in the early ’60s.
Oddly, for an actor with a name made for Hollywood, Universal insisted that he change it to Bart Roberts when he appeared in “ Taza, Son of Cochise” and “ Yankee Pasha” in 1954. But he demanded to use his real name again starting with “This Island Earth.”
Mr. Reason was born on Nov. 30, 1928, in Berlin, where his father, George, worked for General Motors Acceptance, which provided dealerships with credit to finance their inventories. His mother was the former Jean Robinson. He and his younger brother, Rhodes, who also became an actor, were reared in Los Angeles. His brother died last year.
After quitting high school and serving in the Army, Mr. Reason acted at the Pasadena Playhouse. He was given a screen test at Columbia and was cast as the star of “ Storm Over Tibet,” released in 1951, opposite Diana Douglas, Kirk Douglas’s former wife.
He left “The Roaring Twenties” in 1961. “I have a long way to go in my career, and progress is my motto,” he said at the time.
But he soon gave up acting. His last TV appearance was in a 1963 episode of “Wagon Train.” He later worked as a real estate broker and recorded voice-overs until he retired.
Besides his third wife, the former Shirley Hake, Mr. Reason is survived by two children from his first marriage, Andrea Standley and Brent Reason
R.I.P. Rex Reason
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