Albert Dekker

Albert Dekger was an American actor and politician whose career spanned stage, screen, and public office. Born Thomas Albert Ecke Van Dekker on December 20, 1905 in Brooklyn, New York, he was the only child of Thomas and Grace Ecke Van Dekker and showed an early interest in performance while attending Richmond Hill High School. After a brief period studying pre‑medicine at Bowdoin College, Dekker heeded a friend's advice and pursued acting, making his professional debut with a Cincinnati stock company in 1927 and soon appearing on Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's Marco Millions. He migrated to Hollywood in 1937, where his first film credit was The Great Garrick, and over the next three decades he appeared in more than seventy movies, including iconic roles as the mad scientist in Dr. Cyclops, the criminal mastermind in The Killers (1946), the atomic‑fuel dealer in Kiss Me Deadly (1955), and the dubious railroad detective Pat Harrigan in Sam Peckinpah's western classic The Wild Bunch (released posthumously in 1969). In addition to his film work, Dekker was a frequent guest star on 1950s and 1960s television series such as Rawhide, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible, and Bonanza, often portraying memorable villains. His theatrical credentials included replacing Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman in the original production of Death of a Salesman and playing the Duke of Norfolk in A Man for All Seasons during a five‑year Broadway stint in the early 1960s. Outside of entertainment, Dekker was elected as a Democratic member of the California State Assembly for the 57th district, serving from 1945 to 1947, and he openly criticized Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare, which contributed to his blacklisting in Hollywood. He married actress Esther Guerini in 1929; the couple had three children—John, Benjamin and Jan—before divorcing in 1964. Dekker’s personal life was marked by tragedy, including the accidental death of his son John in 1957. On May 5, 1968, Dekker was found dead in his Hollywood home; the coroner ruled the death accidental, attributing it to autoerotic asphyxiation. He was cremated and interred at the Garden State Crematory in North Bergen, New Jersey, and he is honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.