Andrew Prine


Andrew Lewis Prine was an American actor. He had a prolific career spanning from the 1950s through the 2010s, appearing in over 180 film and television productions, and was well known for his roles in Westerns.

Early life and education

Prine was born in 1936, in Jennings, Florida. He was raised in a farming community, and graduated from Miami Jackson Senior High School. He attended the University of Miami on a theater scholarship, but dropped out and headed to New York to pursue acting, enrolling at the Actors Studio.

Career

Early performances

In the mid-1950s, Prine was a "starving" stage actor in New York City. He made his professional debut in an episode of United States Steel Hour in 1957. Aged 22, he was then cast as the lead in the Broadway production of Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel. Adapted by playwright Ketti Frings, the play opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on November 28, 1957. In 1958, Prine was brought in as a replacement for Anthony Perkins. It ran for a total of 564 performances and closed on April 4, 1959. The production was a critical success. it won 1958 Best American Play and was nominated for several Tony Awards.
Prine left Broadway in pursuit of film acting after he realized the greater pay difference between stage and screen work. From 1959, he was cast in a series of small roles for television. In 1962, Prine was cast in the Academy Award-nominated film The Miracle Worker as Helen Keller's older brother James. He had fond memories of his co-star Anne Bancroft, who was dating Mel Brooks at the time.

Westerns and television: 1960s

In 1962, Prine landed the lead role of Andy Guthrie with Earl Holliman in the 28-episode NBC series Wide Country, a drama about two brothers who are rodeo performers that aired between 1962 and 1963. He learnt from rodeo performer and technical advisor Slim Pickens. Prine later credited Holliman for the quality of the series, in terms of rewriting the script and his dedication. After the cancellation of Wide Country, Prine continued to work throughout the 1960s in such Western television series as Gunsmoke, Bonanza, The Virginian, and Wagon Train.
His other television appearances included the non-Western series Dr. Kildare, Cannon, Combat!, and Twelve O'Clock High''.'' He played Dr. Richard Kimble's brother Ray in a notable first-season episode of The Fugitive.
In the late 1960s, Prine appeared in three prominent films made by director Andrew V. McLaglen: The Devil's Brigade with William Holden, Bandolero! with Jimmy Stewart, Dean Martin and Raquel Welch, and Chisum with John Wayne. Prine allegedly had a youthful, egotistical attitude. Nobody intimidated him with the exception of Wayne. Out of all the films in his career, Prine confessed that the Westerns were his personal favorite.

Horror and television: 1970s–1980s

During the 1970s and 1980s, Prine worked steadily in film and television. These included roles in Baretta, Barnaby Jones, Hawaii Five-O, The Bionic Woman, W.E.B., Dallas, and the science-fiction miniseries V and its sequel V: The Final Battle''.''
Prine appeared in a succession of cult horror films including Simon, King of the Witches, Hannah, Queen of the Vampires, Terror Circus, The Centerfold Girls, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Grizzly, The Evil, and Amityville II: The Possession.

Later years: 1990s–2010s

During the 1990s, Prine continued to work in film and television. His appearances included Weird Science and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Prine worked with director Quentin Tarantino on an Emmy-winning episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and in Saving Grace with Holly Hunter, Boston Legal, and Six Feet Under, in addition to feature films with Johnny Knoxville. The Encore Western Channel has featured him on Conversations with Andrew Prine, interviewing Hollywood actors such as Eli Wallach, Harry Carey, Jr., and Patrick Wayne, and film makers such as Mark Rydell with behind-the-scenes anecdotes.

Stage

A life member of the Actors Studio, Prine's stage work includes Long Day's Journey into Night with Charlton Heston and Deborah Kerr, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, directed by Henry Fonda, and A Distant Bell on Broadway.

Accolades

In 2001, Prine received the Golden Boot Award for his body of work in Westerns and two Dramalogue Critics Awards for Best Actor in a leading role.

Personal life

Prine married his first wife, actress Sharon Farrell in 1963. The couple divorced the same year, reportedly after only living together for one month and ten days.
He married his second wife, actress Brenda Scott, in 1965. The couple had multiple remarriages and divorces before they remarried a third time, which lasted from 1973 to 1978.
In 1986, Prine married his third wife, actress-producer Heather Lowe. The couple were together 36 years until his death in 2022.

Karyn Kupcinet

and Prine met on the set of Wide Country in December 1962 and began dating in 1963. The relationship was problematic; Kupcinet was abusing diet pills along with other prescription drugs.
Prine told Kupcinet that he was newly divorced, dating other girls, and not interested in an exclusive relationship. After Kupcinet said she underwent an illegal abortion in July 1963, the relationship cooled further. Prine continued dating other women. In turn, Kupcinet began spying on Prine and his girlfriends. The police were called to Prine's home one afternoon when he and his date heard a burglar in the attic. Kupcinet was found in the house and no charges were filed.
After Kupcinet's death, The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the FBI examined threatening letters that Prine had received; Kupcinet told Prine she had also been sent the exact same kind of threats, with letters cut out of magazine headlines and newspaper headlines. Sheriff's Department investigators suggested they were probably pranks. The FBI later determined Kupcinet had delivered to Prine and herself the threatening and profane messages. Her fingerprints were discovered on Scotch tape during the investigation by the FBI and the Sheriff’s Department. The Scotch tape had fastened the messages to the front door of Prine’s house and the door to Kupcinet’s apartment.
On November 30, 1963, Kupcinet was found dead in her apartment at the age of 22. The coroner concluded that she had been strangled because of a broken hyoid bone in her throat. Her death was ruled a homicide.
During the course of an investigation, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said Prine voluntarily worked with investigators when questioned. Prine said he had talked with Kupcinet twice by phone on Wednesday, the day before her murder, when he was trying to resolve an issue she had brought up during the first of their telephone conversations. She told Prine a baby had been abandoned on the doorstep of her apartment. He told her to call the police and later followed up with another call to see if she had contacted the authorities.
In addition to Prine, during the investigation both Edward Rubin and Robert Hathaway, the two men who had been at Kupcinet’s apartment during the night of her death and possibly had been the last people to see her alive, were named as suspects.
In 1988, Kupcinet's father Irv Kupcinet published a memoir in which he revealed that he and his wife Essee believed that Prine had nothing to do with their daughter's murder. He was suspicious of a person, still alive when he wrote his memoir, who had no connection to Prine. Irv Kupcinet named David Lange, a neighbor of his daughter and brother to actress Hope Lange, who had twice confessed to friends he was guilty. When questioned, Lange suggested that he had been joking. However, when a girlfriend who was with Lange in his apartment, located directly below Karyn Kupcinet’s unit, told him about the police activity there, he told her adamantly to close the drapes and keep quiet. She thought his demeanor was strange because he often had been in Kupcinet’s apartment. Eventually, Lange stopped talking to Sheriff’s Department officers and the police, hired attorneys, and moved to New York. The next public display of Lange’s name occurred in 1971 when the movie Klute, a box office hit, listed him in the credits as “co-producer.” The movie, filmed entirely in New York City in 1970, is about an aspiring stage actress who has turned to prostitution to pay the rent in a brownstone on Manhattan’s West 43rd Street, and she is repeatedly harassed by telephone and stalked by a man whom she met once a long time ago.

Death

Prine died of natural causes while on vacation in Paris, France, on October 31, 2022, at the age of 86.

Filmography

Film

  • Kiss Her Goodbye as Kenneth 'Kenny' Grimes
  • The Miracle Worker as James Keller
  • Advance to the Rear as Private Owen Selous
  • Texas Across the River as Lieutenant Sibley
  • The Devil's Brigade as Private Theodore Ransom
  • Bandolero! as Deputy Sheriff Roscoe Bookbinder
  • This Savage Land as Timothy Pride
  • Generation a.k.a. A Time for Caring, A Time for Giving as Winn Garand
  • Along Came a Spider as Sam Howard
  • Chisum as Alex McSween
  • Lost Flight as Jonesy
  • Night Slaves as Fess Beany / Noel
  • Simon, King of the Witches as Simon Sinestrari
  • Squares a.k.a. Honky Tonk Cowboy, Riding Tall as Austin Ruth
  • Another Part of the Forest as Oscar Hubbard
  • Crypt of the Living Dead a.k.a. La tumba de la isla maldita, Vampire Women as Chris Bolton
  • One Little Indian as Chaplain
  • Wonder Woman as George Calvin
  • Nightmare Circus as Andre
  • Centerfold Girls as Clement Dunne
  • Rooster Cogburn as Fiona's Husband
  • The Deputies a.k.a. The Law of the Land as Travis Carrington
  • Grizzly as Don Stober
  • The Winds of Autumn as Wire Hankins
  • The Town That Dreaded Sundown as Deputy Norman Ramsey
  • Tail Gunner Joe as Peter Parker McNair Gates
  • The Last of the Mohicans as Major Heyward
  • Christmas Miracle in Caufield, U.S.A. a.k.a. The Christmas Coal Mine Miracle as Arthur
  • The Evil as Professor Raymond Guy
  • Abe Lincoln: Freedom Fighter as Luke
  • Donner Pass: The Road to Survival as Lewis Keyser
  • Mind Over Murder as Bald Man
  • M Station: Hawaii as Captain Ben Galloway
  • Callie & Son a.k.a. Callie and Son a.k.a. Rags to Riches as Kimball Smythe
  • A Small Killing as Lieutenant Ward Arlen
  • Amityville II: The Possession as Father Tom
  • They're Playing with Fire as Michael Stevens
  • No Earthly Reason as Mr. Morrison
  • And the Children Shall Lead a.k.a. Wonderworks: And the Children Shall Lead as Sheriff Connelly
  • Eliminators as Harry Fontana
  • Chill Factor as Kioshe Jones
  • Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis as Henshaw
  • Life on the Edge as Dr. Roger Hardy
  • Deadly Exposure as Richard Anthony
  • Scattered Dreams a.k.a. Scattered Dreams: The Kathryn Messenger Story as Sandstrom
  • Gettysburg as Brigadier General Richard B. Garnett
  • Wolfridge as Jack Haig
  • Without Evidence as John Nelson
  • Serial Killer as Perry Jones
  • The Dark Dancer as Dr. Paul Orenstein
  • The Avenging Angel as Andrew Pike
  • The Shadow Men as MIB #1
  • Possums as Mayor Charlie Lawton
  • The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes a.k.a. X-Ray Boy, X-treme Teens as Malcolm Baker
  • Witchouse 2: Blood Coven as Sheriff Jake Harmon / Angus Westmore
  • James Dean
  • Critical Mass as Senator Cook
  • Sweet Home Alabama as Sheriff Holt
  • Gods and Generals as Brigadier General Richard B. Garnett
  • Glass Trap as Sheriff Ed
  • The Dukes of Hazzard as Angry Man
  • Hell to Pay as Matt Elden
  • Daltry Calhoun as Sheriff Cabot
  • Hollis & Rae as Percy Chandler
  • Sutures as Dr. Hopkins
  • Treasure of the Black Jaguar as Andrew Prine
  • Lords of Salem as Reverend Jonathan Hawthorne
  • Beyond the Farthest Star as Senator John Cutter