Mark Stevens (actor)

On September 15, 1994, Stevens died of cancer in Majorca, Spain at the age of 77.

From the 1960s Stevens lived in semi-retirement in Spain. His occasional film credits include Spain Again (1969) and The Fury of the Wolfman (1972). In the 1980s he made guest appearances on television shows including Magnum, P.I., Murder, She Wrote.

As an actor only, he was in Gunsight Ridge (1956), September Storm (1960), and Fate is the Hunter (1964).

From 1954 to 1956, he played a newspaper managing editor in the series Big Town, having replaced Patrick McVey, who starred in the role from 1950 to 1954. Reruns of Big Town began airing on DuMont under the title City Assignment while new episodes of the series were still appearing on CBS.

He was in Torpedo Alley (1953). Stevens took over the lead role in Martin Kane, Private Eye from 1953 to 1954.

Stevens made Mutiny (1952) for the King Brothers and went to England for The Lost Hours (1952).

Stevens then signed a contract at Universal: Target Unknown (1951), a war film; Katie Did It (1951), a romantic comedy; Little Egypt (1951) with Rhonda Fleming; Reunion in Reno (1951).

In 1951, he starred in the DuMont series News Gal which was later syndicated on ABC in 1957.

Stevens was borrowed by MGM to play Matthew Kinston, one of Deborah Kerr's three suitors in Please Believe Me (1950). For Columbia, he starred in the film-noir Between Midnight and Dawn (1950).

In the 1950s and 1960s, he directed several features: Cry Vengeance (1954), Time Table (1956), Gun Fever (1958), Man on a Raft (1958), The Man in the Water (1963), and Sunscorched (1966).

Stevens was in a Western, Sand (1949) and another musical biopic with Haver, Oh, You Beautiful Doll (1949), playing Fred Fisher. He supported William Powell in Dancing in the Dark (1949).

Fox put him in the musical I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now (1947), playing Joseph E. Howard. It was a big hit. So too was The Street With No Name (1948), where Stevens played an FBI man going undercover to arrest a gangster played by Richard Widmark, and The Snake Pit (1948), in which he played Olivia de Havilland's loyal husband.

Back at Fox Stevens was in The Dark Corner (1946) with Lucille Ball and Clifton Webb, a film noir that attempted to repeat the success of Laura (1944). In 1946, exhibitors voted him the fifth-most promising "star of tomorrow".

His first movie for the studio was Within These Walls (1945), fourth-billed, playing the romantic male lead. Stevens was borrowed by RKO to play the lead role in From This Day Forward (1946) with Joan Fontaine.

Moving to Hollywood, he became a Warner Bros. contract actor at $100 a week in 1943. The studio darkened and straightened his curly red hair and covered his freckles. At first he was billed as Stephen Richards. They gave him small parts, often uncredited, in films like Destination Tokyo (1943), Passage to Marseille (1944), The Doughgirls (1944), Hollywood Canteen (1944), Objective, Burma! (1945), God Is My Co-Pilot (1945), The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945), Rhapsody in Blue (1945) and Pride of the Marines (1945). He usually played soldiers. Eventually the studio let him go.

Mark Stevens (born Richard William Stevens; December 13, 1916 – September 15, 1994) was an American actor, who appeared in films, and on television. He was one of four who played the lead role in the television series Martin Kane, Private Eye; he appeared in 1953–54.