Arthur Space

Charles Arthur Space (October 12, 1908[citation needed ] – January 13, 1983) was an American film, television and stage actor. Today's audiences know him as the eccentric inventor opposite Laurel and Hardy in The Big Noise (1944), and as veterinarian Doc Weaver in 39 episodes of the CBS television series Lassie.

Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Space first delved into acting at Douglass College.

Space began his career in summer stock theater and eventually began appearing on Broadway. His Broadway credits include Three Men on a Horse and Awake and Sing.

Producer Edward Finney cast Space as an urbane hoodlum in the 1941 crime drama Riot Squad, starring Richard Cromwell and released by PRC. He jumped from the PRC company to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio. Under contract to MGM, Space appeared alongside Abbott and Costello in Rio Rita, and had roles in Tortilla Flat, Grand Central Murder, Andy Hardy's Double Life, and others. Space remained with MGM but took assignments at other studios, including Twentieth Century-Fox, Columbia, and Universal. At Fox, he appeared in the Laurel and Hardy comedy The Big Noise, in which Space played second lead to the starring team.

Space appeared in three Republic chapter plays: Government Agents vs. Phantom Legion, Canadian Mounties vs. Atomic Invaders, and Panther Girl of the Kongo.

In 1953, Space played Lt. Col. William Barrett Travis, the commander during the siege at the Alamo, in The Man from the Alamo (1953). Space was unbilled.

In 1954, Space played the bandit Black Bart, or Charles Bolles, in an episode of the syndicated western television series Stories of the Century.

Throughout the mid-1950s, Space continued appearing in films such as The Spirit of St. Louis with James Stewart while guest starring on various television series. He appeared four times as Col. Tomkin in the ABC western series, Colt .45, starring Wayde Preston. During this time, Space had a recurring role on Lassie.

Space was cast as Ben Hudson in the 1959 episode "Hang 'Em High", on the syndicated anthology series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. The dramatization focuses on the completion in 1861 of the first transcontinental telegraph line. Hudson determines that Confederates have attempted to sabotage construction because the telegraph would most benefit the Union government. Paul Birch and William Schallert were cast in the episode as Mike Walsh and Ellis Higby, respectively.

In 1960, Space landed the role of the practical farmer Herbert Brown in the 58-episode NBC television series National Velvet, with Lori Martin as his equestrian daughter, Velvet Brown, and Ann Doran as his wife, Martha. After the series ended in 1962, Space continued acting in both television and films. Among his roles were four Perry Mason appearances between 1958 and 1964. In his first appearance he played murder suspect Willard Scott in "The Case of the Rolling Bones," and his final role was as murder suspect Edgarton Cartwell in "The Case of the Paper Bullets." In 1969 Space appeared as Sam Foster on the TV series The Virginian in the episode titled "A Woman of Stone."

In 1978, he appeared in an episode of The Waltons titled "The Beau", playing Grandma Walton's former boyfriend Marcus Dane. His last role was in a 1981 episode of the television series, Walking Tall.

Space died of cancer at his home in Hollywood on January 13, 1983, at the age of 74.