Profile of Larry Blyden on Famous Like Me

Larry Blyden (June 23, 1925 - June 6, 1975) was an American actor.

He was born as Ivan Lawrence Blieden in Houston, Texas, and died in Morocco after a car accident, just shy of his 50th birthday.

Career

Larry Blyden's career had 3 distinct phases. For most of his career, Larry Blyden was known as a good, solid character actor for TV and also as a highly in demand Broadway actor. As for as television is concerned, he starred in one sitcom, "Harry's Girls", which ran from 1963 to 1964. In this adaptation of the Robert E. Sherwood play "Idiot's Delight," Blyden starred as Harry, who was a vaudeville style performer constantly getting into trouble and falling in love. Other than his one starring role, Blyden did many, many guest performances on dramatic anthology series such as Playhouse 90, Omnibus, the Loretta Young Show and many, many others along with The Twilight Zone and other non-anthology dramatic programs.

At the same time that he was doing guest shots on tv, Blyden was an in-demand Broadway and off-Broadway actor, starring in shows such as Mister Roberts (where he played the role later played by Jack Lemmon in the film version), Harold, Foxy and A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. for the role of Hysterium, a slave.

Late in his career, once he had reached the age where actors typically get less work, he became a game show presenter and MC, starting with Personality in 1966. He also hosted You're Putting Me On, The Movie Game and finally and most successfully, What's My Line?. When he died, he was about to host the Mark Goodson-Bill Todman produced show, "Showoffs", which was eventually hosted by Bobby Van.

Blyden also had a brief and rather uneventful film career. He played secondary parts in the films Kiss Them For Me (1957) The Bachelor Party (also 1957) and On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970)

In all of these endeavors, Larry was warm, friendly and gregarious. Of all of the What's My Line hosts, he was the only one who seemed to completely become involved in the occupations of the contestants. As the Game Shows of '75 site mentioned, Larry brightened things up considerably when he took over as host. His most common expressions were "That's Terrific!" or "I Can Do That!" when presented with a new challenge. According to Gil Fates' book What's My Line from 1978, Larry's house was full of all sorts of nicknacks that he had gotten from the show and elsewhere. In fact, he was so big into collectibles that the producers of the show had to dissuade him from taking home certain large items.

Personal Life

Larry was married to actress and dancer Carol Haney (1925-64) from 1955 to 1962. The couple had 2 children, Joshua (1957-2000) and Ellen (1960-present).

Larry was also known as a lover of the ladies. His favorite saying, according to Fates' book, was "I'd love to jump her bones!" Given that he wasn't considered a "hunk" in the typical sense, one has the feeling that his personality won a lot of women over.

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