Mike Kellin
Myron "Mike" Kellin (April 26, 1922 – August 26, 1983) was an American stage and screen actor. He won an Obie Award for his performance in the original Off-Broadway run of American Buffalo, and was nominated for a Tony Award for the Broadway musical Pipe Dream. He was also known for his starring role as Chief petty officer Willie Miller on the 1960s television sitcom The Wackiest Ship in the Army.
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Mike Kellin
Myron "Mike" Kellin (April 26, 1922 – August 26, 1983) was an American stage and screen actor. He won an Obie Award for his performance in the original Off-Broadway run of American Buffalo, and was nominated for a Tony Award for the Broadway musical Pipe Dream. He was also known for his starring role as Chief petty officer Willie Miller on the 1960s television sitcom The Wackiest Ship in the Army.
Early life
Mike Kellin
Kellin was born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was the son of Sophia and Samuel Kellin, Russian-Jewish immigrants. His younger sister, Shirley Ann Kellin (born August 14, 1927), died in the 1944 Hartford circus fire. He was educated at Boston University and Trinity College in Hartford.
Kellin served with the Navy as a lieutenant commander during World War II, and after the war, studied acting and playwriting at the Yale School of Drama.
Career
Mike Kellin
Kellin in At War with the Army (1950)
Kellin made his Broadway debut in 1949 in At War with the Army and repeated his role in the 1950 film version with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. He worked in some 50 plays and won an Obie Award for his work in American Buffalo. He and earned a Tony nomination in 1955 for his acting in the musical Pipe Dream.
In 1956, he contributed the song "Preserven El Parque Elysian" to a rally in support of Elysian Park. Pete Seeger recorded this song in 1965 for this album God Bless the Grass.
Kellin appeared in both the film version of The Wackiest Ship in the Army and the television series based on the film.
In 1966, Kellin appeared in "The Deadly Games of Gamma 6" episode on Lost in Space as Myko. Later he starred on the TV Western series Gunsmoke. He also appeared in "The Thirty Fathom Grave" episode of The Twilight Zone and as a Southerner in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode "Night of the Owl."
Personal life and death
Mike Kellin
Kellin married Nina Caiserman in 1952. The couple adopted a daughter before Nina's death in 1963. In 1966, Kellin married actress Sally Moffat, daughter of actress Sylvia Field. Kellin was active in the Fortune Society.
He died on August 26, 1983, from lung cancer in Nyack, New York, at the age of 61. His interment was at Emanuel Synagogue Cemetery in Wethersfield, Connecticut.
Television credits
Mike Kellin
He was very active in television and was a regular on:
• Combat! (1965) Episode "Losers Cry Deal"
He also appeared in made-for-TV movies, including:
Discography
Mike Kellin
• Tevya and His Daughters, Columbia Masterworks OL 5225 (1957) • And the Testimony's Still Coming, Verve-Forecast FTS 3028 (1967)