Character actor Charles Lane died 9 July 2007, according to his son, Tom. Born Charles Gerstle Levison on 26 January 1905, in San Francisco, he was working as an insurance salesman when a friend persuaded him to try his hand at acting.
He worked from the 1930s to the 1990s, playing hotel clerks, cashiers, reporters, lawyers, judges, tax collectors, mean-spirited businessmen, the powerful as well as the nondescript. In many films, he was little more than a face in the crowd, with only a line or two of dialogue, so it was easy for him to move from one movie set to another, scoring two or three film credits in a single day. He was not the only typecast curmudgeon, but he may have made the most movies, though even he may not have been sure of the exact total (IMDB.com lists 338 appearances). In 1933 alone, he made 23 movies, according to the New York Times, and from 1934 to 1947, he appeared in at least 200 more.
His genre film credits include: Date with an Angel (1987), Strange Invaders (1983), Strange Behavior (1981), The Gnome-Mobile (1967), The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959), Mighty Joe Young (1949), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1942), and The Invisible Woman (1940), as well as the tv movie remake The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1995). His genre television appearances include: Dark Shadows (1991), Otherworld (1985), Mork & Mindy (1980), eight episodes of Bewitched (1965-72), The Wild Wild West (1967), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1966), The Munsters (1966), Get Smart (1965), Mister Ed (1962), The Twilight Zone (1960), and Topper (1954).
Lane’s wife, the former Ruth Covell, whom he married in 1932, died in 2002. In addition to his son, his survivors include a daughter, Alice Deane; and a grandchild.