Fredd Wayne
| Fredd Wayne | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 17, 1924 Akron, Ohio, United States |
| Occupation | Stage, film and television actor |
| Years active | 1947-2003 |
Fredd Wayne (born October 17, 1924) is an American actor with a career spanning seven decades on Broadway, radio, television, movies and recorded works. He is best known for numerous guest star appearances on television and for his portrayal of Benjamin Franklin — originally in his one-man show Benjamin Franklin, Citizen, on television, recordings and live appearances.
Fredd Wayne was born Frederick Wiener in Akron, Ohio to working class parents Celia (Mirman) and Charles Theodore Wiener, a salesman. Two days after graduating from John R. Buchtel High School he took a bus to Hollywood in hopes of working for cousin Lester Cowan who had produced My Little Chickadee and several Marx Brothers films. He recalls sitting in the lobby of Columbia Studios for three days before Cowan dismissed him with: “I got nuthin’ for you, kid.” After Wayne's money and graduation watch were stolen, a neighbor who worked at Warner Brothers drove him to the studio where he was hired as a mail boy for $18 a week. This first Hollywood job, and the rush of delivering film to movie sets, trading “hellos” with Bette Davis and watching John Garfield and Errol Flynn perform, ended when the U.S. Army called him in and asked his pre-draft occupation. Without hesitation, he answered: “I was under contract to Warner Brothers Studio.”
Wayne was made a Special Service non-com (Entertainment Specialist) for the 253rd Infantry Regiment of the 63rd Infantry Division. For eighteen months, in addition to traditional military training, he ran movie projectors, wrote, produced and performed in soldier shows in Mississippi, attended courses at Fort McPherson, Georgia and Washington & Lee University in Virginia (future director Arthur Penn was a classmate); Wayne also acted as booking agent of a hugely successful GI orchestra led by Ralph Cerasuolo, a sophisticated jazz violinist formerly known in New York City as “Leonardo of the Stork Club”. Despite a 14-year age difference they became close friends.
Elements of the 63rd Infantry Division, including Wayne and the band, landed in Marseilles, France on December 8, 1944 and were rushed north to support Americans locked in the Battle of the Bulge. Wayne was assigned to GRO (Graves Registration Office) to retrieve fallen soldiers. On April 2, 1945, he discovered Cerasuolo’s body, killed by a single sniper shot to the forehead.
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