Tom Conway - Career

Career

While working as a contract player for RKO Pictures, Conway starred in three Val Lewton horror films. He played Dr. Louis Judd in two otherwise unrelated films (1942's Cat People and 1943's The Seventh Victim), despite the character having been killed in Cat People. The third Lewton film in which he starred was I Walked with a Zombie (1943). Conway is perhaps best remembered for playing "The Falcon" in ten of the series' entries, taking over for his brother Sanders in The Falcon's Brother, in which they both starred. On radio, Conway played Sherlock Holmes during the 1946–1947 season of The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, following Basil Rathbone's departure from the series. In spite of a similar vocal timbre, Conway was not well-received as Rathbone had been by audiences, and was replaced that season by John Stanley.

Conway's screen career diminished in the 1950s, but he appeared in a number of British films, as well as on radio and television. In 1951, he replaced Vincent Price as star of the radio mystery series The Saint, a character which Sanders had portrayed on film a decade earlier. In 1956, the two brothers both featured (as brothers) in the film Death of a Scoundrel, though Sanders had the starring role.

From 1951–1954, Conway played debonair British police detective Mark Saber, who worked in the homicide division of a large American city, in the ABC series entitled Inspector Mark Saber – Homicide Detective. In 1957, the series resumed on NBC, renamed Saber of London, with Donald Gray in the title role.

In October 1957, Conway performed as Max Collodi in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Glass Eye", to critical praise.