For the bank robber see Forrest Tucker (criminal)

Forrest Meredith Tucker (February 12, 1919 – October 25, 1986) was an American actor in both movies and television who appeared in nearly a hundred films. Tucker worked as a vaudeville straight man aged fifteen years old. A mentor provided funds and contacts for a trip to California, where party hostess Cobina Wright persuaded guest Wesley Ruggles to give Tucker a screen test, based on his pugnacious good looks, thick wavy hair and height of six foot five. Tucker was a sight reader who needed only one take, and his film career started well despite a perception in most Hollywood studios that blond men were not photogenic, but he enlisted during WW2. After twenty years mainly spent in westerns and action roles, he returned to his roots showing versatility as a comedic and stage musical actor. He also became identified with a character in the TV show F Troop, in which he played a blustery version of his amiable real life persona. Tucker struggled with a drink problem that began to affect his performances in the latter years of his career. Although it was not widely publicised while he was alive, in Hollywood circles Tucker was the subject of many anatomically improbable anecdotes.

Biography

Tucker married four times: (1) to Sandra Jolley (1919–86), divorced in 1950, daughter of the character actor I. Stanford Jolley (who also died of emphysema) and the sister of the Academy Award-winning art director Stan Jolley, (2) to Marilyn Johnson on March 28, 1950, and after her death in 1960 (3) to Marilyn Fisk on October 23, 1961. He had a daughter (Pamela "Brooke" Tucker) by his first marriage and a daughter (Cindy Tucker) and son (Forrest Sean Tucker) by his third. (4) In 1986, he married Sheila Forbes.

Best films