Macdonald Carey

Tall, approachable American leading man and character actor who, after enjoying radio success in the late 1930s and Broadway success in "Lady in the Dark" (1941), moved to Hollywood in the 40s and made the extremely enjoyable Anthony Mann "B" film, "Dr. Broadway" (1942). Like George Brent a decade earlier, Carey provided amiable, gentlemanly support to female stars who were generally more dominant and dynamic, including Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, Betty Hutton, Betty Grable, Anne Baxter, Shelley Winters and Claudette Colbert. The leathery, relaxed Carey continued into the 50s, appearing mostly in such modest Westerns as "The Great Missouri Raid" (1951), "Outlaw Territory" (1953) and "Man or Gun" (1958).

Apart from John Farrow's "Wake Island" (1942), Joseph Losey's "The Lawless" (1950) and "The Damned" (1962) and Howard Hawks's "El Dorado" (1967), Carey appeared in largely routine film fare, but Alfred Hitchcock's superb "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943), with its portrait of a small-town American family, would prove prophetic for Carey's work from the 1950s on. Keeping busy in TV as his film career waned, the durable actor showed himself to be ideal for the small screen, embodying sensible family men (typically doctors and lawyers), most memorably as Dr. Tom Horton, a centerpiece of the long-running daytime drama, "Days of Our Lives", from 1965 until immediately before his death in 1994.