Actor Doug Hale Passes On

Doug Hale, an actor who made frequent guest appearances on television and appeared in many movies, died on 28 April 2014. He was 73.

Doug Hale was born in Athens, Georgia on 11 June 1940. He was only five years old when he took up the trumpet and cornet. He was only eight years old when he started his acting career, appearing in a play at the University of Georgia. He started a career as a professional trumpet player when he was only 12 years old, playing with the University of Georgia dance band. He began college at the University of California, Berkeley and finished at the University of Georgia. He earned a BA in English Literature and a Medieval Literature and Linguistics. For two summers when he was in college he played with the Glenn Miller Orchestra conducted by Ray McKinley in Las Vegas. He taught for a time at the University of Georgia, followed by the University of North Carolina and then Carolina Chapel Hill and finally Columbus College. He joined the  United States Air Force Reserves in 1965 and served as a cargo pilot during the Vietnam War.

Mr. Hale retired from teaching to take up acting full time. He made his feature film debut in 1971 in Challenge (1974). In the Seventies he appeared in the films The Night They Robbed Big Bertha's (1975) and Pray TV (1980). He appeared on such TV shows as The Bionic Woman, Kojak, The Rockford Files, What Really Happened to the Class of '65?, and The Incredible Hulk.

In the Eighties he appeared on such shows as The Greatest American Hero, Hart to Hart, the revival of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Crazy Like a Fox, Hotel, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Highway to Heaven, Max Headroom, and Nigh Court. From the Nineties He appeared on such shows as Weird Science, Babylon 5, The West Wing, Mad Men, and Life. He appeared in the films Lullaby (2000), Ali (2001), and Stranger at the Pentagon (2013).