Alex Nicol

The sergeant who made it to Broadway

Alex Nicol was not the kind of actor who chased the spotlight at any cost. Before stepping onto a Hollywood set, he served in the National Guard and fought in World War II, rising to the rank of technical sergeant. That military discipline later helped him get into the Actors Studio and make his Broadway debut in South Pacific.

In 1950, he signed his first major contract with Universal Pictures.

His face was a perfect fit for war movies and mid-century Westerns. In 1952, he shared the screen with Jeff Chandler in Red Ball Express, where he showed he could sustain tension without saying a word. But his big break came when Anthony Mann cast him in The Man from Laramie in 1955.

He played a psychotic, cowardly villain who put even James Stewart on the ropes. That role gave him the visibility that conventional hero roles had consistently denied him. Nicol had an unusual ability to seem unsettling beneath the appearance of an ordinary man.

The camera behind the actor

Nicol soon grew tired of waiting for orders, and in 1958 decided he wanted to call the shots on set. He directed The Screaming Skull on a laughably small budget and with plenty of imagination. The horror production is now best remembered for its aggressive marketing campaign.

The production company promised a free burial to any moviegoer who died of fright during the screening.

And the bet paid off at the box office.

That experiment opened the door to directing for television, but first he decided to try his luck in Europe. During the 1960s he settled in Italy to make genre films. He took part in war productions such as Tutti a casa in 1960 and directed Then There Were Three in 1961, taking advantage of the low production costs on the continent. It was one of the smartest moves a supporting actor ever made toward financial survival.

The years of finding refuge in television

When he returned to the United States, the studio system he had known no longer existed. So he turned to the small screen, where he directed episodes of series such as The Wild Wild West and Tarzan. He never stopped acting, but his roles became briefer and more functional.

In 1970, he appeared in The Bloody Vultures of Alaska and continued making television appearances until his retirement late that decade.

He settled in California to get away from the industry's noise.

He died of natural causes at his home in Montecito on July 29, 2001.