Ken Berry - Film Career

Film Career

The Sullivan show appearance was to take place shortly before Berry would muster out of the Army, and although he thought it presumptuous to write the Hollywood studios asking them to watch his performance on Toast of the Town, Nimoy didn’t, and sent telegrams to several studios and talent agents asking them to watch Berry on the show. They tuned in and Ken's performance led to an offer from Twentieth Century Fox and a screen test at Universal Studios prior to his arrival back in Hollywood. He signed with an agent as soon as he arrived in town.

Berry accepted Universal's offer and began as a contract player. Soon he was being groomed to take over for Donald O'Connor in the Francis the Talking Mule movie series; however Mickey Rooney became available and got the part. While at Universal Berry took full advantage of the studio's talent development program and later, under the GI Bill, he took jazz, ballet, vocal and additional acting classes.

Unfortunately, the movie musicals Berry dreamed of being in had already seen their heyday by the time he reached Hollywood. Little did he know that acting, which he once thought of as "something I would do between song and dance routines", would become the basis of his career.

Berry went on to star in the 1969 musical comedy Hello Down There (reissued as Sub a Dub Dub) as Mel Cheever, the nemesis to Tony Randall and Janet Leigh, and with Denver Pyle in 1976's in Guardian of the Wilderness, the story of Galen Clark, the man who created Yosemite National Park. Berry also earned broader success as a Disney star in the films Herbie Rides Again in 1974 with Helen Hayes and Stefanie Powers, and The Cat From Outer Space in 1978 with Sandy Duncan and McLean Stevenson.