Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Michael Callan, the actor and dancer who portrayed Riff in the original Broadway production of West Side Story before starring in such films as Gidget Goes Hawaiian, The Interns and Cat Ballou, has died. He was 86.
Callan died Monday night of pneumonia at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, his daughter Rebecca Goodman told The Hollywood Reporter.
A contract player at Columbia Pictures, Callan made about a dozen movies at the studio, starting with They Came to Cordura (1959), a Western starring Gary Cooper, Rita Hayworth, Van Heflin and Tab Hunter.
On the 1966-67 NBC comedy Occasional Wife, Callan starred as a confirmed bachelor who sets up a woman (Patricia Harty) in an upstairs apartment so she can pose as his wife in order to help him advance at the baby food company where he works. (His boss believes all his execs should be married.)
Perhaps because the premise was a bit risqué for its day, the Screen Gems series was canceled after one season. In real life, Callan and Harty both got divorced and wed in June 1968, but their marriage wouldn’t last much longer than their series….
…Read the Full Article @ The Hollywood Reporter
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