Paul Ford

After having drifted from job to job--with a wife and five children in tow--Baltimore native Paul Ford decided in his late 30s to give acting a try. He worked with the Depression-era W.P.A. agency in a puppet show project and also wrote shows for the Federal Theatre; his biggest break came when he and his co-workers staged a puppet production for the 1939 New York World's Fair. Radio, stage and film work followed, but Ford wouldn't truly hit the big time until 1955, when he was engaged to play the apoplectic Colonel Hall on Phil Silvers' situation comedy You'll Never Get Rich. For four seasons, TV fans were regaled by the efforts of conniving Sgt. Bilko (Silvers) and long-suffering Col. Hall to outsmart one another. During this period, Ford worked steadily in the theatre, recreating his popular stage role as Colonel Purdy in Teahouse for the August Moon when the play was committed to film in 1955. After Phil Silvers' series was cancelled, Ford continued his stage and screen career, scoring a major success in 1965 in the play Never Too Late, in which he played a fiftyish husband who discovered that his middle-aged wife was pregnant. Never Too Late was filmed in 1967, with Ford once again in the starring role; five years and many lucrative acting assignments later, Paul Ford retired.

by Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide