Here is the biography of Harvey Stephens:
Born on August 21, 1901, in Los Angeles, Harvey Stephens attended U.C.L.A. and trained with Walter Hampden's repertory company for two years. He had already married Beatrice Nichols in 1929 and began his career on Broadway with a role in "Other Men's Wives" (1929). He went on to appear in several Broadway shows, including "Dishonored Lady" (1930) with Katharine Cornell and "Tomorrow and Tomorrow" (1931) with Herbert Marshall and Zita Johann.
Stephens made his film debut in Paramount's Pre-Code drama "The Cheat" (1931),where he played the role of Jeffrey Carlyle, the concerned husband to Tallulah Bankhead's voracious party girl and gambler Elsa Carlyle. Although he was talented, his big chance for stardom was snuffed out by Bankhead's dominating performance.
Continuing to work on Broadway, Stephens appeared in several plays, including "The Animal Kingdom" (1932) with Leslie Howard, "Best Years" (1932),"Conquest" (1932),"I Loved You Wednesday" (1932),and "The Party's Over" (1933). Fox signed him up in 1933, and he went on to appear in second leads and "other man" parts, bolstering a number of quality films and providing a good-looking distraction between some of Hollywood's most popular cinematic stars.
Stephens' film career slowed down by the end of the decade, and he began to receive credit much further down the list, especially in the higher-quality films of "Beau Geste" (1939),"Abe Lincoln in Illinois" (1940),"Sergeant York" (1941),and "Lady in the Dark" (1944). After WWII, his film career subsided drastically, and he returned to Broadway in 1944 with "Over 21" starring Ruth Gordon and "Violet".
In the 1950s, Stephens occupied much of his time on TV, now a well-oiled character actor, but he never found any one series that might have given his character name a noticeable boost. His last Broadway role came with "Time Limit" (1956). He ended his career on TV in 1965 with an episode of "Bonanza," then retired quietly to the Southern California area.
Harvey Stephens died just a few days before Christmas in 1986 at the Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills, California, at the age of 85, survived by his present wife Barbara and three children.
