Paul Lambert (actor)

Early life

Lambert was born in El Paso, Texas, and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. During World War II he was a lieutenant in the Army Air Forces. He trained at the Actors' Lab in Los Angeles and then moved to New York City, where he first worked Off Broadway, subsequently appearing with Rod Steiger on Broadway in a revival of Clifford Odets's Night Music (a credit that is often misrepresented as A Little Night Music because of the similarity of the titles and the fact that the Sondheim musical featured an actor named Mark Lambert).

Career

Lambert's husky dark looks suited his frequent screen portrayals of gangsters and other heavies. In addition, he often appeared as authority figures such as executives, judges, and police officers. Among his major films were Spartacus (his movie debut), Planet of the Apes (in a brief role as a simian minister), and All the President's Men, in which he played the national editor of The Washington Post.

It was on television that Lambert played his biggest roles. He acted on 300 shows and appeared fourteen times on CBS's Playhouse 90 anthology series, more than any other actor. He appeared twice in the role of Yates in the 1962 syndicated adventure series The Everglades, with Ron Hayes. Lambert was a frequent guest star on 1960s television and was able to maintain a successful career into the 1990s.

Though he never became a "name" actor, Lambert was often able to secure billing that eluded his contemporaries, such as the coveted title-sequence billing he received both times he appeared on The Man From U.N.C.L.E., in "The Bow-Wow Affair" (1965) and "The Take Me To Your Leader Affair". He also appeared in three episodes of the CBS courtroom drama series Perry Mason, twice in 1961 as Ben Nicholson in "The Case of the Envious Editor," and murdered news correspondent Lawrence Vander in "The Case of the Renegade Refugee." He also appeared as Del Compton in the 1965 episode, "The Case of the Mischievous Doll" and as General Reicker in a Hogan's Heroes episode, "The Big Dish." He was also recognized for playing the French-Canadian revolutionary Durain in The Wild Wild West episode "The Night of the Firebrand". In 1970, he guest-starred in an episode of The Silent Force.

Lambert died at the age of seventy-four at St. John's Medical Center in Santa Monica, California, where he resided.