William Challee


William John Challee was an American actor.

Biography

William Challee appeared on Broadway by 1926 and by 1931 in early Group Theatre productions. He married actress Ruth Nelson in 1931; they later divorced. The two appeared in the 1947 film The Sea of Grass, in supporting roles, after they were divorced.
In 1937 Challee staged a suite of one-act plays at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, under the heading Plays of the Sea. The suite consisted of the Eugene O'Neill plays Bound East for Cardiff, In the Zone, The Long Voyage Home and Moon of the Caribbees. They were produced by the Federal Theatre Project of the WPA, running for 68 performances from October 29, 1937.
Challee was living in Chicago by 1940. By the middle 1940s, Challee was working in films in California, mainly in supporting and uncredited roles. Challee married dancer Ella Franklin Crawford on April 19, 1944 in Santa Monica.
Challee appeared in episodes of numerous television series, including a 1953 episode of The Lone Ranger and a 1957 episode of Perry Mason. In 1960 Challee appeared as Saunders on Laramie in the episode titled "Duel at Parkinson Town." In 1962 Challee appeared as a prisoner on the TV western The Virginian in the episode titled "The Brazen Bell."
Challee played the incapacitated family patriarch in the 1970 film Five Easy Pieces, whose illness brings "son" Jack Nicholson home to the family estate.
In 1984 he married his long-time partner Joan Wheeler Ankrum. Together, in 1960, they opened the Ankrum Gallery on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Challee was buried in Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto.

Broadway roles