Dan Barton

Personal life

Dan Barton was born as Daniel George Berman in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of 16, he began his lifelong acting career starting out in radio. He served in the Army in World War II acting with Alex Nicol and Mickey Rooney. While stationed in Paris he edited a humor magazine. After returning to the States he was cast as Stefanowski in the stage play Mr. Roberts where he met actor Cliff Robertson who became his lifelong friend.

While on tour, Barton met his first wife, actress Anne Barton. They married between a matinee and evening performance. The best man at their wedding was actor John Forsythe. Anne, who died in 2000, was best known as Eddie Haskell’s mother in Leave it to Beaver. They had two children, musician Steve Barton from the band Translator and Susan Berman. In 2005, he married Gyl Roland, daughter of Gilbert Roland and Constance Bennett.

Career

In the late 1940s, Dan Barton appeared on stage in the successful stage production “Mr. Roberts” alongside Cliff Robertson, Lee Van Cleef, John Forsythe and Brian Keith.

He had a long career in television from the 1950s through the 1980s, playing in a variety of different shows including the highly acclaimed "Playhouse 90." He was cast as Jim Ellis, a schoolmaster with a mysterious past who claims to have killed a bank robber, in the 1957 season premiere, "Incident at Indian Springs", of the ABC/Warner Brothers western television series, Cheyenne, with Clint Walker in the title role.

Among other series in which he appeared were Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, Bonanza, Barnaby Jones, The F.B.I., Ironside, The Streets of San Francisco, The Rockford Files, Battlestar Galactica and Quincy M.E. Barton also portrayed Earl Carnes, the character you loved to hate on NBC's Days of Our Lives.

In his later years, Barton was highly in demand as a voice-over talent. He narrated documentaries, worked in commercials and provided the voices for many characters in video games. He also spent several years recording books for the blind for The Braille Institute. He was the spokesman for Northrup Aviation for twelve years and did voice-over work for companies such as Coca-Cola, Kelloggs, Microsoft and Nike. Barton also was the voice in many political campaign commercials, including prominent Republicans Arnold Schwarzenegger and Elizabeth Dole, despite his own position as a lifelong Democrat.

Death

On December 13, 2009, Dan Barton died at the age of 88 from heart failure and kidney disease.