Harold J. Stone, a reliable stalwart on TV crime shows during the 1960s and 1970s, was typically cast in strong, unsympathetic roles, often portraying unyielding fathers, husbands, corrupt businessmen, menacing crime figures, and characters of varying ethnic origins.
Born Harold Jacob Hochstein on March 3, 1913, in New York City, Stone was the son of a Jewish acting family who established themselves in the Yiddish theater. He began his career on stage with his father as a child, initially entertaining a career in medicine by attaining a BA degree at the University of Buffalo Medical School.
However, acting proved too strong a desire, and Stone transitioned to radio, eventually making his Broadway debut with "The World We Make" in 1939. He went on to appear in productions such as "Morning Star" in 1940 and "A Bell for Adano" in 1944.
Stone's early work in New York on stage and TV paved the way for a modest character career in movies and a move to Hollywood. In the 1950s, he began to provide a minor, shady presence in films such as "The Harder They Fall" (1956),"The Wrong Man" (1956),"Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956),"Spartacus" (1960),and "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" (1967).
In television, Stone became a fixture in hundreds of police dramas, including "77 Sunset Strip" (1958),"Naked City" (1958),"The Untouchables" (1959),"Mannix" (1967),"Mission: Impossible" (1966),"The Rockford Files" (1974),and "Kojak" (1973). He was once Emmy-nominated for a dramatic guest role.
Stone was left a widower by his first wife Joan in 1960, with whom he had two children. He continued to work primarily on episodic TV into the mid-1980s before retiring and settling down with his second wife Miriam, whom he married in 1962 and had another child with. Stone passed away at the age of 92 in Woodland Hills, California.
