Fredd Wayne (born Frederick Searle Wiener; October 17, 1924 – August 27, 2018) was an American actor with a career spanning seven decades on Broadway, radio, television, movies, and recorded works. He appeared on television as a guest star, and portrayed Benjamin Franklin, originally in his one-man show Benjamin Franklin, Citizen, on television, recordings, and live appearances.
Early life Fredd Wayne was born in Akron, Ohio to working-class parents Celia (Mirman) and salesman Charles Theodore Wiener. Two days after graduating from John R. Buchtel High School he took a bus to Hollywood in hopes of working for cousin Lester Cowan who had produced My Little Chickadee and several Marx Brothers films. He recalls sitting in the lobby of Columbia Studios for three days before Cowan dismissed him with: "I got nuthin’ for you, kid." After Wayne's money and graduation watch were stolen, a neighbor who worked at Warner Brothers drove him to the studio where he was hired as a mail boy for $18 a week. Soon he was drafted into the U.S. Army.
World War II
Following basic training Wayne was made a Special Services non-com (Entertainment Specialist) for the 253rd Infantry Regiment of the 63rd Infantry Division. For the duration of his two-year hitch he ran movie projectors, wrote, produced and performed in soldier shows in Mississippi, attended courses at Fort McPherson, Georgia, and Washington and Lee University in Virginia (where he was classmates with future director Arthur Penn); Wayne also acted as booking agent of a hugely successful GI orchestra led by Ralph Cerasuolo, a sophisticated jazz violinist formerly known in New York City as "Leonardo of the Stork Club". Despite a 14-year age difference, they became close friends. Elements of the 63rd Infantry Division, including Wayne and the band, landed in Marseilles, France, on December 8, 1944, and were rushed north to support Americans locked in the Battle of the Bulge. Wayne was assigned to GRO (Graves Registration Office) to retrieve the bodies of fallen soldiers. On April 2, 1945, he discovered Cerasuolo, who had been killed by a single sniper shot to the forehead.
G.I. Carmen Shortly after VE Day, Wayne was directed to put together an entertainment for the men. In response to his notices, 45 combat veterans of his 253rd Infantry Regiment turned in rifles for grease paint to create G.I. Carmen – destined to become, with the exception of This Is the Army, the most successful G.I. show of World War II. With half the cast as women in ill-fitting costumes and scraggly wigs, the show was to run for only three nights in Tauberbishofsheim, GermanyRedcat, A 253rd Infantry Regiment Weekly, Vol. 1 No. 1, Germany, 15 June 1945 but its raucous, bawdy humor, robust singing, and dancing made it a roaring success that the Army recognized at once. In addition to writing, producing and co-directing duties, Wayne had to play the title role when no other G.I. would touch it. The cast included several pre-war professionals, including Hal Edwards, who had danced in 20th Century Fox musicals, and Ray Richardson, a tenor with the Chicago Lyric Opera. Most of Ralph's band, now led by Marty Faloon, were onstage as well, among them guitarist Charlie Byrd. After raiding Stadttheater Heidelberg for colorful costumes, proper wigs, and scenery, the army sent the troupe on an extended eight-month tour throughout Germany,The Stars and Stripes, Germany Edition, July 17, 1945Time, The Weekly News Magazine, August 6, 1945 Belgium, France, Italy, and Austria including stops at leading theatres in Berlin, Brussels, Paris,The Stars and Stripes, Paris, November 4, 1945 Rome, and Vienna. The show closed in Nuremberg on January 24, 1946. GI Carmen’s cast was kept together throughout 142 performances before audiences totaling well over 250,000 G.I. and allied troops and countless civilians, including Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in Paris and Marlene Dietrich in Berlin.
Professional career
Back in the states Fredd Wayne settled in New York with a job at J.C. Penney offices by day and acting classes at the American Theatre Wing after hours. (Lee Marvin, James Whitmore, and Martin Balsam were classmates; Eileen Heckart and Jean Stapleton were among the volunteer actresses). Roles there included Polonius in Hamlet at age 23. As an usher at Broadway's Alvin Theatre Wayne watched Ingrid Bergman star in Joan of Lorraine, and fetched tea for José Ferrer during the latter's celebrated run in Cyrano de Bergerac. (Ten years later for Universal's Revue Productions, Wayne performed the character in a TV pilot called The Sword.The New York Times, Feb. 8, 1957The Hollywood Reporter, June 3, 1957 It never sold.) Following the Cyrano run Ferrer cast Wayne in his production of the Czech play The Insect Comedy whose performers included Ray Walston, Werner Klemperer, and Don Murray. Fredd Wayne's big Broadway break came when he went to audition for Shakespeare's As You Like It starring Katharine Hepburn but was mistakenly pulled in to read for the Johnny Mercer – Bobby Dolan musical Texas, L’il Darlin’.
His G.I. Carmen musical skills helped land a leading role. Critical success led to more Broadway credits such as Not For Children by Elmer Rice and following Ray Walston as Luther Billis opposite Mary Martin in the original London production of South Pacific. Wayne's success in London – including a concurrent extended engagement at The Berkeley Cabaret – was followed by a role opposite Gene Kelly in MGM's Crest of the Wave, filmed in England and the Channel Islands. It also led to American productions of South Pacific playing Billis opposite Gisele MacKenzie in Dallas, Vikki Carr in Kansas City, and Jane Powell in St. Paul, Minnesota. Returning to New York Wayne co-starred opposite Ralph Bellamy in Oh Men!, Oh Women! and became embroiled in the Golden Age of Television, when dramas and comedies were not videotaped or filmed but miscues were part of the tension and grandeur of performing live before millions of people. Wayne appeared in such shows as Playhouse 90, Studio One, Pulitzer Prize Playhouse, The Defenders, Kraft Theatre, Danger, We the People, Robert Montgomery Presents, The Victor Borge Show, and The Nurses. He also made six guest appearances on Perry Mason, all shot in Hollywood, including the role of murder victim Jack Hardisty in the 1958 episode, "The Case of the Buried Clock". Wayne appeared in S1 E21 "The Annie MacGregor Story" on "Wagon Train" 1958. He played Barney, the agent for Barbara Nichols' showgirl character Liz Powell in S2 E17 "Twenty Two" on The Twilight Zone 1961, as depicted in the photo above.
Benjamin Franklin, Citizen Out of these creative years Fredd Wayne developed the role for which he's probably best known. The idea came to him while flying to New York from Los Angeles in 1964; he went straight to the New York Public Library from JFK to begin research and was directed to the Editor of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. After six weeks of study and appearances as Franklin on the Tonight Show and Today Show,The New York Times, Sept. 9, 1964 he began breaking in his one-man show Benjamin Franklin, Citizen in upstate New York and Ohio. By the time he reached Los Angeles the production was running smoothly and Wayne was hired to play Franklin in a two-part episode of Bewitched on ABC-TV.Variety, Hollywood Edition, Oct. 20, 1966Wayne's Benjamin Franklin, Citizen also had a long run in Hollywood's Ivar TheatreThe Hollywood Reporter, Oct. 27, 1966Variety, Hollywood Edition, Oct. 27, 1966Los Angeles Times, Oct. 27, 1966 which led to a well-received U.S. State Department tour of EuropeThe Hollywood Reporter, Feb. 22, 1967The New York Times, Mar. 1, 1967 and subsequent college tours throughout America during the Bicentennial era and beyond. His work as Franklin on Bob Hope's America is 200 Years Old...And There's Still Hope! recorded on May 4, 1976, led to appearances in multiple roles on four subsequent Bob Hope Television Specials including an appearance as Brandon Tartikoff opposite Brandon Tartikoff. Fredd Wayne has also appeared frequently as Franklin at IBM, GE, and other industrial conventions. His recording of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Audio Partners) was selected as one of the top audiotapes of 1997.Publishers Weekly, Jan. 5, 1998
Writings As a writer Fredd Wayne's articles have appeared in The New York Times,The New York Times, "A Ben Franklin Tour With 'Ben Franklin'", Sunday, June 1, 1975 Playboy,Playboy, "How to Avoid Making Out in Hollywood" (under the nom de plume, 'Kelton Holloway'), January 1958 The Los Angeles Times,Los Angeles Times, Calendar section, "Vaudeville Isn't Dead - It's Going to College", Sunday, June 22, 1969Los Angeles Times, Calendar section, "'Godfather' Casting: An Italian Uprising", Sunday, February 28, 1971 Performing Arts,Performing Arts, Center Theatre Group, Mark Taper Forum, February 1976 Westways,Westways, "Cambria at Play", May 1977 The Arizona Republic,The Arizona Republic, "Picketing hard on feet of Writers Guild members", May 13, 1973 and numerous other publications. Wayne has titled his upcoming fictionalized memoir "Blinky's Great Adventure".
Death Wayne died at an assisted-living facility in Santa Monica on August 27, 2018, aged 93.Fredd Wayne, Who Played Benjamin Franklin on 'Bewitched,' Dies at 93: Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 28, 2018.
Selected stage credits
Year Production Role Notes 1945 G.I. Carmen Carmen 142 performances in Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and Austria, June 9, 1945 - January 24, 1946, produced by the U.S. Army 1947 Hamlet Polonius American Theatre Wing 1948 The Insect Comedy José Ferrer, director 1949 Texas, Li'l Darlin''' || Brewster Ames II || 293 performances, Nov 25, 1949 - Sep 9, 1950 |- | 1951 || Not for Children || Hugh McHugh || by Elmer Rice |- | rowspan="2" | 1952 || South Pacific || Luther Billis || original London production, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane |- | Have Tuxedo, Will Travel || himself || a one-man show at The Berkeley Cabaret |- | 1954 || Oh Men!, Oh Women! || || with Ralph Bellamy |- | 1964 || Benjamin Franklin, Citizen || Benjamin Franklin || in theatres throughout the United States and Europe |- | 1969 || Go Fly a Kite || conceiver / actor || Tambellini's Gate Theatre |- | 1984 || A Taste for the Forbidden'' Drama-Logue Award for performance, L.A.A.T. Half-Stage
Filmography Film Year Title Role Notes 1954 Crest of the Wave Seaman N. Sam 'Shorty' Kaminsky (USN) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer British Studios, with Gene Kelly 1956 The Man Is Armed Egan Republic Pictures The Girl He Left Behind Sgt. Sheridan Warner Bros., with Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood 1958 Torpedo Run Orville 'Goldy' Goldstein Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) 1961 Twenty Plus Two Harris Toomey Allied Artists Pictures 1962 The Spiral Road Van Bloor Universal International Pictures, with Rock Hudson and Gena Rowlands 1964 Seven Days in May Henry Whitney Uncredited, with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster Sex and the Single Girl Frank Uncredited, with Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood 1966 Chamber of Horrors Charlie Benton Uncredited, with Patrick O'Neal, Wilfrid Hyde-White and Suzy Parker 1974 Hangup Felder Warner Bros. 1981 American Pop voiced 7 roles Uncredited, Bakshi Productions, animated motion picture 1987 Dutch Treat the Judge 1989 A More Perfect Union: America Becomes a Nation Benjamin Franklin 1999 Man on the Moon Bland Doctor (final film role)
Television