Albert_Dekker

Albert Dekker

Albert Dekker (December 20, 1905 – May 5, 1968) was an American character actor and politician best known for his roles in Dr. Cyclops, The Killers and The Wild Bunch. He is sometimes credited as Albert Van Dekker or Albert van Dekker.

Early life and career

Born Albert Van Ecke in Brooklyn, New York, he adopted his mother's maiden name of Dekker as his stage name. Dekker attended Bowdoin College and made his professional acting debut with a Cincinnati stock company in 1927. Within a few months, Dekker was featured in the Broadway production of Eugene O'Neill's play Marco Millions.

After a decade's worth of theatrical appearances, Dekker transferred to Hollywood in 1937, and made his first film, 1937's The Great Garrick. He spent most of the rest of his acting career in the cinema, but also returned to the stage from time to time. He replaced Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman in the original production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, and during a five-year stint back on Broadway in the early 1960s, he played the Duke of Norfolk in Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons. Dekker appeared in some seventy films from the 1930s to 1960s, but his three most famous screen roles were as a mad scientist in the 1940 horror film Dr. Cyclops, as a vicious hitman in the The Killers, and as an unscrupulous railroad detective in Sam Peckinpah's western The Wild Bunch.

Dekker was not typically cast in romantic roles. However, in the film Seven Sinners, featuring a romance between Marlene Dietrich and John Wayne, Dietrich eventually abandons the macho Wayne to sail off with Dekker's character.

Dekker's role as Pat Harrigan in The Wild Bunch would be the actor's last screen appearance.

Politics

Dekker's off-screen preoccupation with politics led to his winning a seat in the California State Assembly for the 57th Assembly District in 1944. Dekker served as a Democratic member for the Assembly during the McCarthy era, and became an outspoken critic of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy's tactics. Dekker served as an Assemblyman until 1946.

Personal life

On April 4 1929, Dekker married actress Esther Guernini. The couple had two sons and a daughter before divorcing.

At the time of his death, Dekker was engaged to actress Geraldine Saunders.

Death and Controversy

In May of 1968, Dekker was found strangled to death in his Hollywood home. His naked body was bound hand and foot, a hypodermic needle was jammed into each arm, and obscenities were scrawled all over the corpse. At first, it seemed that Dekker was a closet homosexual who had committed suicide (early reports suggested that the writings on his body were his bad movie reviews) or had died while having rough sex. However, there were also items stolen from his apartment, so it is also possible that he was murdered during the course of a robbery.