Bruce Bennett (born May 19, 1906, Tacoma, USA as Herman Brix) is an American actor. His first career was as an athlete, and he won the Silver medal for shot-putting in the 1928 Olympic Games. Eventually, he was picked by Ashton Dearholt of Burroughs-Tarzan Enterprises Inc. to star in the 1935 movie serial, The New Adventures of Tarzan following in the footsteps of fellow Olympic stars Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe. He was actually set to take over the role years earlier in 1932 at MGM but was injured and replaced by Weissmuller.
After a number of serials and B-movies, and finding himself still typecast as "Tarzan" in the minds of major producers, following time in service during World War II Brix changed his name to "Bruce Bennett".
He appeared in many top-notch films in the 1940s and early 1950s including Sahara (1943), Mildred Pierce (1945), Nora Prentiss (1947), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Mystery Street (1950) and Sudden Fear (1952). However, he was always in the shadow of Gary Cooper, and often got inferior Cooper-type roles.
From the mid-1950s on he mainly appeared in lesser films, such as The Alligator People (1959), and on television in guest starring roles. He was a very successful business man during the 60s outside of acting.
Bennett reached his 100th Birthday on 19 May 2006.
NB: Standard works of reference such as Halliwell's "Who's Who in the Movies" and Katz's "Encyclopedia of Film" give his date of birth as 1909 (or 19th May 1909) but the IMDB (link below) has 1906.
