Biography
With his slight build, receding hairline, bespectacled visage and reedy voice, Cox confounds most notions of what a leading man should be. However that's exactly what he was on American TV for a significant chunk of the 1950s. Cox first gained fame as Robinson Peepers, a mild-mannered high school science teacher in the once beloved sitcom "Mr. Peepers" (NBC, 1952-55).
By today's standards, "Mr. Peepers" was improbably gentle. Whereas …
Latest Tv Credits
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Career Milestones
1973 | Died of a heart attack in Bel Air; Brando flew in from Tahiti to handle the cremation | |
1973 | Final TV-movie, "The Night Strangler"; played a librarian who assists reporter-cum-supernatural investigator Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) | |
1971 | Final film appearance, "The Barefoot Executive", a Disney satire of TV programming | |
| Appeared in TV commercials for Jockey Shorts | ||
1967 | Portrayed a scoutmaster in the TV-movie pilot for "Ironside" | |
| Became regular panelist (in the upper left "square") on the tic-tac-toe game show "Hollywood Squares" | ||
| Provided the voices of the humble "Shoeshine Boy" and his heroic alter-ego "Underdog" on the popular Saturday morning cartoon from producer Jay Ward | ||
1964 | Guest starred as a programmer of an amorous computer in "From Agnes--With Love", an episode of "The Twilight Zone" | |
1962 | Co-starred in the unfinished Marilyn Monroe comedy "Something's Got to Give" directed by George Cukor with Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse | |
1962 | Feature debut, "State Fair" | |
1959 | Wrote a play, "Moonbirds", which closed after three performances | |
1958 | Signed a seven-year, $50,000-a-year contract to develop special projects for NBC | |
| Starred as a mild-mannered proofreader with remarkable abilities in the short-lived (four months) sitcom, "The Adventures of Hiram Holiday" | ||
1956 | Returned to nightclub work; heckled off the stage in Las Vegas; bowed out of the engagement after a few days | |
1953 | Began acting in summer theater productions playing the part of Irwin in "Three Men on a Horse" | |
| Starred as Robinson Peepers, a meek high school science teacher in the hit NBC sitcom, "Mr. Peepers"; performed live in front of a NYC studio audience; began as a summer replacement series | ||
1951 | Starred as a mild-mannered trouble-prone policeman in the "Philco Television Playhouse" production of David Swift's "The Copper" on NBC (date approximate); impressed the show's producer, Fred Coe, who began developing a pilot for a comedy vehicle | |
1951 | Hosted his own NYC radio show on WNEW in October | |
1950 | Performed at the Plaza Hotel's Persian Room and on numerous TV and radio shows including those headlined by Perry Como, Ed Sullivan, Garry Moore and Arthur Godfrey (dates approximate) | |
1950 | Began undergoing psychoanalysis (date approximate) | |
1950 | Hailed for his performance, received more than 20 offers for work in film, TV, theater and clubs by the time "Dance Me A Song" closed | |
1950 | Broadway debut, "Dance Me A Song" | |
1949 | Early TV appearance as a "student" on "School House", a comedy variety series on the DuMont network set in a schoolhouse | |
| Caught the attention of theatrical producer Dwight Deere Wiman who cast him in his new musical revue | ||
| Took his act up to the Blue Angel in midtown Manhattan | ||
1948 | Made nightclub performing debut at the Village Vanguard the same night he auditioned; initial one evening engagement extended into months | |
1948 | In December, at a theatrical party, met Judy Freed who set up an audition with Max Gordon, owner of the Village Vanguard, a popular jazz cafe in NYC's Greenwich Village | |
| Became affiliated with the American Creative Theater Group where the director advised him to shape his monologues into a nightclub act | ||
| Influenced to act by his childhood friend and Greenwich Village roommate Marlon Brando; made other friends in the theater | ||
| Began performing monologues regularly at parties | ||
| Performed an informal comic monologue at a party; did an impression of a soldier he had once met | ||
1946 | Went into business for himself as a silversmith; made tie clasps, cuff links and shirt studs for NYC haberdashers; netted around $40 per week | |
| Hospitalized from heat strokes; received honorable discharge after four months | ||
| Drafted into the army, sent for training to Camp Walters, Texas | ||
| Worked variously as a shoe-weaver, silversmith and puppeteer apprentice | ||
| Left school when mother striken by partial paralysis; became the family's primary breadwinner | ||
1942 | Enrolled in the City College of New York to study botany | |
| Moved from Detroit to NYC with mother and sister Eleanor | ||
| Parents divorced when Cox was a youth | ||
Awards
1954 | Primetime Emmy Award for Best Male Star of Regular Series in Mr. Peepers |