Hans Georg Conried, Jr. (April 15, 1917 – January 5, 1982), was an American character actor, very active in voice-over roles and known for providing the voices of Walt Disney's George Darling, and Captain Hook in Peter Pan (1953), for playing the title role in The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, Dr. Miller on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, Professor Kropotkin on the radio and film versions of My Friend Irma and for his work as Uncle Tonoose on Danny Thomas's sitcom Make Room for Daddy.

Biography

Early years
He was born on April 15, 1917 in Baltimore, Maryland to Hans Georg and Edith Beryl (née Gildersleeve) Conried. He was named Hans Georg Conried Jr. Claims that his real name was Frank Foster are false. His Connecticut-born mother was a descendant of Pilgrims, and his father was a Jewish immigrant from Vienna, Austria. He was raised in Baltimore and in New York City.

He studied acting at Columbia University and went on to play major classical roles onstage. Conried worked in radio before working in movies in 1939. During World War II, he enlisted in the United States Army in September 1944.


Radio career and other voice work
One of Conreid's early radio appearances came in 1937, when he appeared in a supporting role in a broadcast of "The Taming of the Shrew" on KECA in Los Angeles, California. Four years later, a newspaper reported about his role on Hedda Hopper's Hollywood: "But at the mike he's equally convincing as old men, drunks, dialeticians, or Shakesperean tragedians. Miss Hopper favors him for her dramatizations when the script will allow him, as she puts it, 'to have his head.'"

Conried appeared regularly on radio during the 1940s and 1950s. He was in the regular cast of Orson Welles's Ceiling Unlimited, for which he wrote the December 14, 1942, episode, "War Workers". On CBS's The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show he played a psychiatrist whom George regularly consulted for help in dealing with the ditsy Gracie.

Conried made his Broadway debut in Can-Can and was credited in six films (among them The Twonky and The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T), all in 1953. Other Broadway productions include 70, Girls, 70 and Irene. He can be clearly heard on the Original Cast Albums (and CDs) of Cole Porter's "Can-Can" and Kander & Ebb's "70, Girls, 70" where, among other songs, Conried performs a sensational fast-paced patter song called "The Caper."

Conried's inimitable growl and impeccable diction were well suited to the roles he played, whether portraying the dim Professor Kropotkin in the radio show My Friend Irma or portraying comic villains and mock-sinister or cranky types, such as Walt Disney's Mr. Darling, and Captain Hook in Peter Pan (1953), and The Grinch/Narrator from Dr. Seuss' Halloween is Grinch Night. According to the DVD commentary of Futurama, he was the inspiration for the voice created for that series' "Robot Devil".

Conried was a cast member of other Dr. Seuss specials, and The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, voicing the character of Snidely Whiplash in the Dudley Do-Right shorts, and hosted Fractured Flickers, another creation of Jay Ward and Bill Scott, as well as Wally Walrus on The Woody Woodpecker Show, Uncle Waldo P. Wigglesworth on Hoppity Hooper, and Dr. Dred on Drak Pack. He also performed as the "slave in the mirror" character, hosting several memorable episodes of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color.


TV appearances

Besides hosting Fractured Flickers, Conried was a regular panelist on CBS's pantomime program, Stump the Stars and a semi-regular guest on the Ernie Kovacs-hosted game show Take a Good Look. He was a regular guest on Jack Paar's Tonight Show on NBC from 1959 to 1962. Conried joined the cast of The Tony Randall Show during the 1977-78 season.

Guest appearances included I Love Lucy (as the English tutor Percy Livermore and used furniture merchant Dan Jenkins), a riverboat gambler nicknamed "Thimbelrig" by Davy Crockett who dies with him at the Alamo Davy Crockett, The Californians, Meet McGraw, Hey, Jeannie!, The Ray Milland Show, The DuPont Show with June Allyson, The Real McCoys, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Mister Ed, The Islanders, Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, Lost in Space, Daniel Boone, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Lucy Show, Gilligan's Island, The Monkees, Have Gun – Will Travel, Love, American Style, Here's Lucy, Kolchak, Alice, Laverne & Shirley, The Love Boat, Hogan's Heroes, Match Game, Maverick, What's It For, Fantasy Island, and Quark.

From 1955-64, Conried made twenty-one guest appearances as Danny Thomas' Lebanese "Uncle Tonoose" in Make Room for Daddy on ABC and then CBS. He was featured in the 1958 episode "What Makes Opera Grand?" on the anthology series Omnibus. The episode, an analysis by Leonard Bernstein showing the powerful effect of music in opera, featured Conried as Marcello in a spoken dramatization of Act III of Puccini's La Bohème. The program demonstrated the effect of the music in La Bohème by having actors speak portions of the libretto in English, followed by opera singers singing the same lines in the original Italian.


Death
Conried was active until his sudden death of a heart attack on January 5, 1982. He was married to Margaret Grant from January 29, 1942 until his death three weeks short of their 40th wedding anniversary. The couple had four children.


Filmography

Dramatic School (1938)
Never Say Die (1939)
It's a Wonderful World (1939)
On Borrowed Time (1939)
Dulcy (1940)
The Great Dictator (1940)
Bitter Sweet (1940)
Maisie Was a Lady (1941)
The Gay Falcon (1941)
Underground (1941)
Unexpected Uncle (1941)
Weekend for Three (1941)
More About Nostradamus (1941) (uncredited)
Joan of Paris (1942)
Blondie's Blessed Event (1942)
Saboteur (1942)
The Wife Takes a Flyer (1942)
Pacific Rendezvous (1942)
The Falcon Takes Over (1942)
The Big Street (1942)
The Greatest Gift (1942) (short subject)
Nightmare (1942)
Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942)
Underground Agent (1942)
Crazy House - Roco (1943)
Hitler's Children (1943)
Journey into Fear (1943)
Hostages (1943)
A Lady Takes a Chance - Gregg Stone (1943)
Crazy House (1943)
His Butler's Sister (1943)
Passage to Marseille (1944) (uncredited)
Mrs. Parkington (1944)
Sliphorn King of Polaroo (1945) (short subject) (voice)
Woody Dines Out (1945) (short subject) (voice, uncredited)
The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947)
Variety Time (1948)
The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
My Friend Irma (1949)
Bride for Sale (1949)
On the Town (1949)
One Hour in Wonderland (1950)
Nancy Goes to Rio (1950)
Summer Stock (1950)
Rich, Young and Pretty (1951)
New Mexico (1951)
Behave Yourself! (1951)
Texas Carnival (1951)
Too Young to Kiss (1951)
I'll See You in My Dreams (1951)
Johann Mouse (1952) (short subject) (voice)
The Light Touch (1952)
Three for Bedroom "C" (1952)
Big Jim McLain - Robert Henried (1952)
The World in His Arms (1952)
The Twonky (1953)
Peter Pan - Captain James Hook, and Mr. George Darling (1953) (voice)
The Emperor's New Clothes (1953) (short subject) (voice)
Siren of Bagdad (1953)
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T - Dr. Terwilliker (1953)
The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953)
Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier - Thimblerig (1955)
You're Never Too Young (1955)
The Birds and the Bees (1956)
Bus Stop (1956)
Carnival in Munich (1956) (short subject) (narrator)
The Story of Anyburg U.S.A. (1957) (short subject) (voice)
The Woody Woodpecker Show - Wally Walrus(1957)
The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)
Jet Pilot - Colonel Matoff (originally filmed in 1949 but not release until 1957) (1957)
The Big Beat (1958)
Maverick - episode - Black Fire - Homer Eakins (1958)
Rock-A-Bye Baby (1958)
Juke Box Rhythm (1959)
The Real McCoys - episode - The Actor - Sterling Ames (1959)
The Alphabet Conspiracy (1959) (short subject) (Mad Hatter)
The Miracle on 34th Street - Mr. Shellhammer (1959)
1001 Arabian Nights (1959) (voice)
The Real Mccoys - episode - The Actor - Mr. Ames (1959)
The Magic Fountain (1961) (voice)
The Bullwinkle Show - Snidely Whiplash (1961)
Mister Ed - episode - Ed and Paul Revere - Igor (1962)
Fractured Flickers - 26 episodes - Host (1963-1964)
My Six Loves (1963)
Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)
The Patsy (1964)
Hoppity Hooper - 104 episodes - Professor Waldo Wigglesworth (1961-1966)
The Cricket on the Hearth - Tackleton (1967) (voice)
Wake Me When the War Is Over (1969) (TV)
The Phantom Tollbooth (1970) (voice)
Horton Hears a Who! - The Narrator / Horton / Dr. H. Hoovey (1970)
O'Hara, U.S. Treasury - episode - Operation: Dorias - Count Anton Brelius (1972)
Dr. Seuss on the Loose - Narrator/North-going Zax/South-going Zax (1973) (voice)
The Brothers O'Toole (1973)
The Shaggy D.A. - Professor Whatley (1976)
The Magic Pony (1977) (voice)
The Hobbit - Thorin Oakenshield (1977) (voice)
Halloween Is Grinch Night - Narrator/The Grinch (1977) (voice)
The Cat from Outer Space (1978)
Oh, God! Book II (1980)
Drak Pack - 16 episodes - Dr. Dread (1980) (voice)
Why Didn't Somebody Tell Me? (1980)
Scruffy (1980) (voice)
Faeries (1981) (voice)
The Trolls and the Christmas Express (1981) (voice)
Spiderman and His Amazing Friends (1981) (voice)
Miss Switch to the Rescue (1982) (voice)

Best films