Crahan Denton
Crahan Denton was an American stage, film and television actor. One of his most famous film roles was in To Kill a Mockingbird, in which he portrayed Walter Cunningham, a client of the main character, lawyer Atticus Finch. Walter is the leader of a mob that attempts to lynch another one of Finch's clients.
He had a number of roles in Broadway plays and won an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Performances in Supporting Roles for 1954-1955 for his work in Bus Stop.
Early years
Born Arthur Crahan Denton in Seattle, Washington, he was the son of Arthur P. Denton and his wife May. He and his parents later moved to Piedmont, California, surrounded by the city of Oakland.After graduating from local schools, Denton studied drama at the University of California, Berkeley. He moved to New York City, where he studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. In his acting career, Denton used his middle name "Crahan", an Irish surname in his family, as his first name.
Career
Denton was active in Little Theater productions during his time as a student at the University of California, Berkeley. In New York, he gradually gained stage roles, with Broadway credits including Key Largo, Liberty Jones, Fragile Fox, Bus Stop, Orpheus Descending, and Winesburg, Ohio.From 1945 until his death in 1966, Denton also starred in many films, including The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery, The Parent Trap, Birdman of Alcatraz, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Bus Riley's Back in Town.
During May 1952, he starred as Abraham Lincoln in an episode of American Inventory that was a preview of a pilot for a proposed series. He also performed as a guest star in many television series, including Bonanza, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, ''Gunsmoke, Have Gun Will Travel with Richard Boone, The Fugitive with David Janssen, and The Donna Reed Show. In 1960, he co-starred in an unsold pilot titled, Mountain Man, about a Rocky Mountain fur trading station in the 1840s. Denton made two guest appearances on the CBS courtroom drama series Perry Mason''.