Bruce Bennett
Acting
Bruce Bennett (born Harold Herman Brix) was an American actor and Olympic silver medalist shot putter. His first career was as an athlete. At the University of Washington, where he majored in economics, he played football (tackle) in the 1926 Rose Bowl and was a track-and-field star. Two years later, he won the Silver medal for the shot put in the 1928 Olympic Games. Brix moved to Los Angeles in 1929 after being invited to compete for the Los Angeles Athletic Club and befriended actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who arranged a screen test for him at Paramount. In 1931, MGM, adapting author Edgar Rice Burroughs's popular Tarzan adventures for the screen, selected Brix to play the title character. Brix, however, broke his shoulder filming the 1931 football film Touchdown, so swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller replaced Brix and became a major star. After Ashton Dearholt convinced Burroughs to allow him to form Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises, Inc., and make a Tarzan serial film, Dearholt cast Brix in the lead. Pressbook copy has it that Burroughs made the choice himself, but, in fact, in his biography, Brix confirmed that Burroughs never even saw him until after the contract was signed, and then only briefly. The film was begun on location in Guatemala, under rugged conditions (jungle diseases and cash shortages were frequent). Brix did his own stunts, including a fall to rocky cliffs below. The Washington Post quoted Gabe Essoe's passage from his book Tarzan of the Movies: "Brix's portrayal was the only time between the silents and the 1960s that Tarzan was accurately depicted in films. He was mannered, cultured, soft-spoken, a well educated English lord who spoke several languages, and didn't grunt."[4] Brix shown in the opening credits of the serial The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935). Due to financial mismanagement, Dearholt had to complete filming of much of the serial back in Hollywood, and Brix, although his travel and daily living expenses in Guatemala were covered throughout the shoot, never received his contracted salary, along with the rest of the cast. The finished film, The New Adventures of Tarzan, was released in 1935 by Burroughs-Tarzan, and offered to theatres 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.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as James Cody
Age 41 (now 100)
Tarzan: Lord of the Movies
as Tarzan (Archive Footage)
Age 110 (now 100)
Discovering Treasure: The Story of 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'
as James Cody (archive footage)
Age 97 (now 100)
Tarzan at the Movies, Part 2: The Many Faces of Tarzan
as Tarzan (archive footage)
Age 90 (now 100)
The House Across the Street
as Matthew J. Keever
Age 43 (now 100)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as James Cody
Age 41 (now 100)
Beer Barrel Polecats
as Prison Guard (archive footage)
Age 39 (now 100)
There's Something About a Soldier
as Frank Molloy
Age 37 (now 100)
Dutiful But Dumb
as Vulgarian Soldier in General's Office (uncredited)
Age 34 (now 100)
So Long Mr. Chumps
as Prison Guard / Truck Driver (uncredited)
Age 34 (now 100)
No Census, No Feeling
as Football Player #20 (uncredited)
Age 34 (now 100)
How High Is Up?
as Workman with Leaky Lunchpail (uncredited)
Age 34 (now 100)
The Man with Nine Lives
as State Trooper (uncredited)
Age 33 (now 100)
Five Little Peppers at Home
as Jim - King's Chauffeur
Age 33 (now 100)
Blondie Brings Up Baby
as Mason's Chauffeur (uncredited)
Age 33 (now 100)
Five Little Peppers And How They Grew
as Tom - King's Chauffeur
Age 33 (now 100)
Death on the Diamond
as Man on Ticket Line (uncredited)
Age 28 (now 100)
Million Dollar Legs
as Klopstokian Athlete (uncredited)
Age 26 (now 100)
Stories of the Century
as William Clark Charles Quantrill
Age 47 (now 100)
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
as Judge Paul Maston
Age 45 (now 100)Gathering insights...
Also Known As
Harold Herman Brix, Herman Brix
IMDB
nm0071636