Ben Alexander

Ben Alexander was an Emmy-nominated American motion picture actor, who started out as a child actor in 1916. 

He was born in Goldfield, Nevada on June 27, 1911, and raised in California. Alexander made his screen debut at age of five in Every Pearl a Tear. He went on to portray Lillian Gish’s young brother in D.W. Griffith’s Hearts of the World. After a number of silent era films, he retired from screen work but came back for the World War I classic, All Quiet on the Western Front, in which Alexander made his first positive impression as an adult actor in the role of Kemmerick, the tragic amputation victim.

When Alexander’s acting career slowed down in the mid-1930s, he found a new career as a successful radio announcer in the late 1940’s, including for The Martin and Lewis Show, and in 1952, Jack Webb chose him to replace Barton Yarborough, who had suddenly and unexpectedly died and had played Friday’s original partner, Ben Romero. A few actors filled in as Friday’s partners until Alexander was hired as a permanent replacement in the newly created role of Officer Frank Smith, first, in the radio series, and then, in the TV series Dragnet.

On July 5, 1969, Alexander died because of a massive heart attack in his Los Angeles home when his wife and children returned from a camping trip.

Ben Alexander was awarded three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television, radio, and movies.