Michael Fox (American actor)

Michael Fox
Born (1921-02-27)February 27, 1921
Yonkers, New York, U.S.
Died June 1, 1996(1996-06-01) (aged 75)
Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Years active 1952–1995
Spouse(s) Hannah Fox (1947–1996) (his death); 2 children

Michael Fox (born Myron Melvin Fox, February 27, 1921 – June 1, 1996) was an American character actor who was in numerous movies and television roles. Some of his most famous recurring roles were as various autopsy physicians in Perry Mason, as Coroner George McLeod in Burke's Law, as Amos Fedders in Falcon Crest, and as Saul Feinberg in The Bold and the Beautiful.

Early life

Fox was born in Yonkers, New York to Jacob Fox, an Austrian-born salesman, and his wife, the former Josephine Berkowitz. He was the youngest of four children, and the third son.[1]

Career

Michael Fox began acting in stage plays in southern California circa 1945. Through his stage endeavors, Fox met Harry Sauber who introduced him to Sam Katzman.[2]

Two of his regular TV roles were as the coroner in the courtroom drama Perry Mason, and as Saul Feinberg on the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful from 1989–1996.

Among his earlier television work was the next-to-last episode of Adventures of Superman, as the ringleader of a criminal gang that tried to conduct a Perils of Pauline–style series of murder attempts on the show's various protagonists. He also appeared in several episodes on the 1955–1957 television series Science Fiction Theatre.

The Dr. Fox Effect

Fox also made an important contribution to the scholarly field of education, as the actor who portrayed "Dr. Myron L. Fox" in a study that would give rise to the Dr. Fox effect,[3] and also participated in the generation of additional materials in at least one follow-up study.[4] In the initial demonstration of this effect, Fox delivered an engaging and expressive lecture that contained no meaningful content, and yet, the audience rated Fox just as highly as a genuine professor's lecture. The Dr. Fox effect has been often cited as a critique of the validity of student evaluations of teaching.

Personal life and death

He was married to Hannah, an actress he met while acting in the stage play The Dybbuk, in a Los Angeles area theatre run by Lou Smuckler, father-in-law of Lee J. Cobb. Borrowing a car from Dorothy Gish, Fox drove Hannah to a judge and married her between the matinee and evening performances of The Story of Mary Surratt.[2]

Fox died of pneumonia June 1, 1996, in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California.[2][5]

Acting roles

Non-recurring multiple roles in television series

Singular appearances in television series

Feature-length films

References

  1. ↑ U.S. Census Year: 1940; Census Place: Yonkers, Westchester, New York; Roll: T627_2863; Page: 1B; Enumeration District: 68-14
  2. 1 2 3 Weaver, Tom (2004). It Came from Horrorwood: Interviews with Moviemakers in the Science Fiction and Horror Tradition. McFarland & Company. pp. 102–121. ISBN 978-0-7864-2069-8.
  3. ↑ Donald H. Naftulin, John E. Ware, Jr., and Frank A. Donnelly, "The Doctor Fox Lecture: A Paradigm of Educational Seduction" Archived 2008-02-09 at the Wayback Machine., Journal of Medical Education 48 (1973): 630-635
  4. ↑ R. Williams and J. Ware, "Validity of student ratings of instruction under different incentive conditions: A further study of the Dr. Fox effect", Journal of Educational Psychology 68 (1976): 48–56.
  5. ↑ Michael Fox at Find a Grave
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