Jon Hall (February 23, 1915 – December 13, 1979) was an American film actor best known for his playing a variety of adventurous roles when contracted to Universal Pictures.

Biography

Born Charles Felix Locher in Fresno, California, and raised in Tahiti by his father, the Swiss-born actor Felix Locher (16 July 1882-13 March 1969), he was a nephew of writer James Norman Hall, the author, along with Charles Nordhoff, of the novel Mutiny on the Bounty. Hall began acting in films in 1935 in minor roles, one of which was Charlie Chan in Shanghai. Though rejected for the lead of the Flash Gordon serial he achieved notable success in 1937, when cast opposite another relative newcomer, Dorothy Lamour, in The Hurricane, based on a novel by Nordhoff and Hall. His double in The Hurricane was the stuntman and actor Paul Stader. After two and a half years inactive he made three films in quick succession.

Hall was under contract to Sam Goldwyn and earning a good salary although it took him a while to find his next project – Goldwyn refused to lend him out for Thief of Bagdad.

Eventually contracted to Universal, Hall maintained his popularity until the end of the 1940s, usually playing leads in adventure films. In 1940, he portrayed Kit Carson in a biographical film of the frontiersman's life, Kit Carson. He is notable for having made six popular Technicolor adventure films with Maria Montez: Arabian Nights (1942), White Savage (1943), Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944), Cobra Woman (1944), Gypsy Wildcat (1944), and Sudan (1945). He is also known in the Universal Monsters fan base for playing two different Invisible Men in Invisible Agent and The Invisible Man's Revenge. He is the only actor to have portrayed an Invisible Man more than once in the original Universal series.

Jon Hall is perhaps best remembered by later audiences as the star of the television series Ramar of the Jungle, which ran from 1952 to 1954. Hall directed and starred in the 1965 cult horror film The Beach Girls and the Monster. He made his final two television appearances on Perry Mason: in 1963 he played Max Randall in "The Case of the Festive Felon", and in 1965 he played Lt. Kia in "The Case of the Feather Cloak."

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