Olan Soule

Olan Soule
Actor Olan Soule
Born	Olan Evart Soule February 28, 1909 La Harpe, Hancock County Illinois, USA
Died	February 1, 1994 (aged 84) Los Angeles, California
Cause of death	Lung cancer
Resting place	Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery
Other names	Alan Soule Olan E. Soule Alan Soulé Olan Soulé
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1926–1991

Olan Evart Soule (February 28, 1909 – February 1, 1994) was an American character actor with hundreds of credits in films, radio, commercials, television and animation, most notably as the primary television animation voice of Batman from 1968 to 1984.

Early life

Born in La Harpe, Illinois to Elbert and Ann Williams Soule (descendants of three Mayflower passengers), Olan left Illinois at the age of seven and arrived in Des Moines, Iowa, where he lived until he was seventeen. He then launched his theatrical career by joining Jack Brooks' tent show in Sabula, Jackson County, in eastern Iowa.^[1]

Personal life

• Olan married Norma Elizabeth Miller on September 29, 1929. They were married for 63 years until her death on July 1, 1992. The couple had two children.
• Olan was a 32 degree Mason and a member of the Los Angeles Show Business Shrine Club (Al Malikah).

Career

Radio

After leaving the tent show, Soule appeared on stage in Chicago for seven years before moving to radio in 1933, including a stint on Chandu the Magician (1935–36). On radio he performed for eleven years in the daytime soap opera Bachelor's Children. Beginning in 1943, he did lead male characters on radio's famed The First Nighter Program for nine years. Listeners of First Nighter who met Soule in person were often surprised, since his slight 135-pound frame did not seem to match the voices he gave to his characters. From 1941 on, Soule had the role of L. William Kelly, SS-11, the second in command of the Secret Squadron on the Captain Midnight radio adventure serial.^[1] When Captain Midnight became a television series in the 1950s, Soule was known as SQ-3, behind Captain Midnight himself and Ichabod Mudd "with two D's". He also has a regular part on Lee Hansen's 1970's and 1980s science fiction radio drama Alien Worlds.

Television and films

Concluding his nine-year run on First Nighter, Soule moved to Hollywood, where he did films and television, building a reputation as a reliable character actor. He was best known as Mr. Krull, a boarding house resident in The Day The Earth Stood Still. He appeared on many television series: The Donald O'Connor Show (as a semi-regular), Captain Midnight (as scientist Aristotle "Tut" Jones), I Love Lucy, several appearances as a hotel clerk and choir director on The Andy Griffith Show, and a semi-regular role as real-life LAPD criminalist Ray Murray on Dragnet. He also made six appearances on Perry Mason, mostly as a court clerk, but also as a bank employee and water company official.

He made at least two appearances on Petticoat Junction. In both the 1967 episode "Shoplifter at the Shady Rest" and the 1968 episode "Mae's Helping Hand", he played Mr. Benson.

The list of Soule's supporting and starring roles is long. Some include The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, The Jack Benny Program, I Love Lucy, The Danny Thomas Show, The Real McCoys, Mister Ed, City Detective, Behind Closed Doors, Dante, Harrigan and Son, Hennesey, State Trooper, One Step Beyond, The Restless Gun, The Rebel, Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Twilight Zone, The Untouchables, Bewitched, Pete and Gladys, The Addams Family, The Munsters, Johnny Ringo, Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Happy, Bonanza, The Jean Arthur Show, Laramie, The Monkees, Mission: Impossible, The Six Million Dollar Man, Fantasy Island, Little House on the Prairie, Dragnet, Dallas and Simon & Simon. He was the only actor who performed on both the Captain Midnight radio and television shows.^[2]

Batman

Soule is remembered by many for providing the voice of Batman in several animated series. He first performed as the Caped Crusader on the 1968 Filmation-produced The Batman/Superman Hour.^[3] He reprised his role as Batman on The Adventures of Batman, The New Scooby-Doo Movies, Sesame Street (1970), Super Friends (1973), The All-New Super Friends Hour, Challenge of the SuperFriends, The World's Greatest Super Friends and Super Friends (1980). He appeared as a newscaster on the live-action Batman television series (in "The Pharaoh's in a Rut") with his Super Friends successor Adam West. Although Soule eventually gave back the Batman mantle to the man who portrayed him in live-action, he continued to contribute in the Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show series, providing the voice of Professor Martin Stein, mentor and subconscious of fledgling hero Firestorm.^[2]

Death

On February 1, 1994, Soule died of lung cancer in Corona, California, at the home of his daughter, Jo Ann, and son-in-law, Dr. David Henriksen. He was eighty-four years old.^[4]

Selected filmography

• Cuban Fireball (1951) - Jimmy

References

1. Dunning, John. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. Oxford University Press, 1998; ISBN 0-19-507678-8
2. Great Character Actors: Olan Soule at the Wayback Machine (archived July 15, 2011)
3. "Voices in the Knight". IGN. Retrieved 2010-08-15.
4. "Olan Soule, 84, Big-Voiced Actor Who Played Thousands of Roles". The New York Times. 5 February 1994. Retrieved 18 February 2014.

External links

• 1989 interview with Olan Soule on the radio show Those Were the Days
• Footage of Olan Soule on Television
• Olan Soule at the Internet Movie Database
• Olan Soule at Find a Grave