LANE BRADFORD
August 29th, 1922 -- June 7th, 1973

Above: Lane Bradford, son of a great villain--and a great villain himself,--in one of his most offbeat roles: Marex, the lead Martian invader in ZOMBIES OF THE STRATOSPHERE (Republic, 1952).

"Like father, like son." That is a very old cliche, but, like many other old cliches, it is quite frequently the truth. It certainly was in the case of John Merton and his son Lane Bradford, for both of them excelled in playing bad guys, in B-westerns, serials, and, especially in Bradford's case, television. Lane (whose real name was John Myrtland LaVarre Jr.) inherited his father's protruding jaw and ferocious energy, and added an air of icy ruthlessness and matter-of-fact cruelty to these traits to create some memorable screen villains in his own right. He entered serials in the declining years of the cliffhanger genre, and only played major roles in five chapterplays, but his performances in all of them were absolutely on-target.

None of my sources have mentioned Lane's birthplace, so, unless I get any info to the contrary, I'll assume he was born in the state of Washington, where his dad hailed from. He entered movies in the early 1940s, initially performing stunt work and doing minor roles in some PRC Lone Rider B-westerns. His first serial was THE VALLEY OF VANISHING MEN (Columbia, 1942), in which he played a minor henchman and doubled star Wild Bill Elliott in some action scenes. He only made some half-dozen film appearances between 1942 and 1945, so it seems more than likely that he spent some time in the US Army during WWII. Lane's second serial paired him with his father: JACK ARMSTRONG (Columbia, 1947). While Merton played a major villain role in ARMSTRONG, Bradford was only a lab assistant at mad scientist Charles Middleton's headquarters. He had just a few lines in the course of the serial, but he was easily visible in all scenes shot in the villains' hideout, and it was possibly this exposure that led some executive to realize: "Hey, that Bradford kid looks good and mean! He deserves some bigger villain parts." He began to get bigger parts in B-westerns, and, after two more uncredited henchman bits (in Columbia's 1947 release THE VIGILANTE and Republic's ADVENTURES OF FRANK AND JESSE JAMES from 1948), he got his first big serial part in JAMES BROTHERS OF MISSOURI (Republic, 1949). Republic's later serials almost always featured a "duo" of action heavies, with one slightly more intelligent and active than the other, and in JAMES BROTHERS Bradford was the lower-ranking henchman, Monk Tucker. His partner in crime was none other than Roy Barcroft, greatest of all the serial villains, and a perfect mentor to teach Lane the fine art of cliffhanger villainy. The two of them did all the dirty work for villainess Patricia Knox, who was attempting to take over heroine Noel Neill's stageline but was thwarted at every turn by the reformed James Brothers (Keith Richards and Robert Bice).

Above: Lane Bradford (on horseback) delivers a message to Roy Barcroft (second from left) in a lobby card for JAMES BROTHERS OF MISSOURI (Republic, 1949).

Bradford's next serial moved him up to the top man in an action heavy partnership. THE INVISIBLE MONSTER (Republic, 1950) featured Lane as Burton, a gangster who teamed with fellow thug Harris (John Crawford) to carry out the orders of the Phantom Ruler (Stanley Price). The Ruler was a criminal mastermind bent on creating an invisible army to conquer the world; he used his own invisibility costume to elude the authorities as he tried to gather funding for his scheme, but insurance investigator Richard Webb and his assistant Aline Towne kept him, Bradford, and Crawford from making the big haul they needed to begin the conquest of the world. Though Westerns would later become Bradford's main field of activities, he showed in MONSTER that he could just as easily play a modern-day criminal, and used his great villainous talents to keep from being overshadowed by the weird figure of the Phantom Ruler.

Above: Lane Bradford (far left) sees his chance to turn the tables on the hero as a henchman (Eddie Parker) knocks the gun from Richard Webb's hand in this still from THE INVISIBLE MONSTER (Republic, 1950).

Bradford's next serial is one of my own personal favorites, as it was one of the first cliffhangers I ever saw. DON DAREDEVILS RIDES AGAIN (Republic, 1951), returned Lane to the old west as Weber, chief henchman of land-grabbing politician Douglas Stratton (Roy Barcroft again). Barcroft was trying to gain control of valuable ranchland by proving an old Spanish land grant to be a forgery (in reality, Bradford and fellow henchman John Cason had stolen the real grant and substituted a fake). Ken Curtis, later to co-star on GUNSMOKE as Festus Haggin, played Lee Hadley, cousin of rancher Patricia Doyle (Aline Towne). Lee, a lawyer, returned from the East and, after realizing that Stratton's men controlled the Sheriff, followed in the footsteps of his grandfather, who had fought outlaws and corrupt lawmen in the guise of the masked avenger Don Daredevil. Bradford was initially cowed by the appearance of the supposedly-long dead hero, but after realizing that Don Daredevil was a flesh and blood foe, took on the hero with knives, fists, guns, and anything else that happened to be at his disposal. Lane outlived partner Cason in the final chapter, making a last desperate attempt to win the day by attacking Towne's ranch house together with Barcroft, but Don Daredevil showed up in time to plug Bradford and rescue Aline. Barcroft was shot down by his own men, and the land grant was proved genuine after all. DON DAREDEVIL was my first introduction to Lane Bradford, and I still find his performance in it excellent. A more driven, ruthless henchman couldn't be found, and whenever things were at a stalemate, old Weber couldn't resist bringing out dynamite or barrels of gunpowder to liven them up again.

Above: John Cason (top) and Lane Bradford probably have Ken Curtis pinned down again in DON DAREDEVIL RIDES AGAIN (Republic, 1951). I can hear them now--Cason: "We'll never smoke him out o' thar, Weber". Bradford: "Get the dynamite".

Bradford's second-to-the-last serial was certainly his weirdest one; it is also one of his best remembered. ZOMBIES OF THE STRATOSPHERE (Republic, 1952) let Bradford play the chief heavy, a Martian named Marex who arrived on Earth to set off an atomic bomb that would throw the Earth out of its orbit and allow Mars to take its place. Bradford and his aide (a young Leonard Nimoy) enlisted the aid of a treacherous Earth scientist (Stanley Waxman) and several gangsters (including John Crawford, who had worked with Lane in INVISIBLE MONSTER) but their plan met opposition from Larry Martin (Judd Holdren), a scientist with a unique rocket flying suit. The role of Marex was a very strange one, but Lane rose to the occasion and made his strange, otherworldly character completely convincing, combining icy resolve with greedy eagerness for the success of his evil plans. The serial was released about two months before Bradford's birthday; he had already become a premiere serial henchman and proved he could play a head villain before reaching the age of thirty.

Above: Marex (Lane Bradford, right) gives orders to John Crawford in ZOMBIES OF THE STRATOSPHERE (Republic, 1952).

Lane's last cliffhanger was one of the last Republic serials ever produced: MAN WITH THE STEEL WHIP in 1954. As a renegade Indian named Tosco, he led rebellious members of his tribe against settlers in an attempt to provoke an Indian war that would enable his boss, Mauritz Hugo, to grab the vast gold deposits on the Indian reservation. Rancher Richard Simmons, anxious to prevent war from breaking out, donned the disguise of El Latigo, an ancient champion of the Indians, and managed to prove what Tosco was up to. Bradford was kicked out of the Indian tribe, but he continued to execute Hugo's every order along with outlaw Dale Van Sickel. Ultimately, Hugo and Van Sickel were killed and Bradford was jailed by Simmons and by the Sheriff--none other than Roy Barcroft himself! Lane delivered another excellent henchman performance in STEEL WHIP; his look of sadistic glee during a knife fight with Simmons in the first chapter was alone enough to establish his character as a creep of the first order. It was Lane's farewell to serials, but audiences had not seen the last of him--not by a long shot.

Above: Richard Simmons, as the masked El Latigo, battles the vicious Lane Bradford in a scene from MAN WITH THE STEEL WHIP (Republic, 1954).

Lane was just warming up when he finished MAN WITH THE STEEL WHIP; throughout the fifties and on into the sixties and early seventies, he would become one of the most prolific screen villains of all time, principally on television. Bradford made over two hundred TV appearances, mainly on TV westerns and almost always as a bad guy. RAWHIDE, GUNSMOKE, BONANZA, HIGH CHAPPARAL, THE TEXAN, BAT MASTERSON, LARAMIE, MAVERICK, WAGON TRAIN, THE VIRGINIAN, THE LONE RANGER, THE GENE AUTRY SHOW--all of these shows and many more were graced by the villainous presence of Lane Bradford. He also made appearances on non-Western shows like LOST IN SPACE, THE FUGITIVE, BATMAN, and even BEN CASEY. Not all of his TV appearances were villainous, however--one of his best television parts was on THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, where he played Perry White's nephew, an Air Force captain, who is wrongfully accused of espionage and who must clear his name with Superman's help. At the other end of the spectrum, one of his best TV villain roles was as a psychotic sheriff in an episode of HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL. Lane's last theatrical film was SHOOTOUT, which starred the late Gregory Peck, in 1971. He made three more TV appearances (on CANNON, MARCUS WELLBY, and GUNSMOKE) before retiring to Hawaii, where he passed away in the summer of 1973.

"Like father, like son." Like his father, Lane Bradford gave serial fans some of the most fierce and aggressive villains they'd ever seen. And, though Lane's tenure in serials wasn't as long as his dad's, Bradford had an even longer run in the new form of continued pictures--the TV show. I'm sure John Merton was proud of the way his son followed up the family profession--the profession of Silver Screen Henchman and All-Around Bad Guy.