The Inescapable (and Invisible) Whit Bissell

To the casual viewer, it might seem like character actors like William Demarest and Elisha Cook, Jr. appeared in every film ever made. And there’s no denying that in certain genres and during specific periods, they were ubiquitous. But the actors’ filmographies can’t touch that of the great Whit Bissell in terms of sheer volume. They may be better known, but the numbers go to Whit.

Between the late ‘30s and the early ‘80s, Bissell appeared in a staggering number of films and television shows, easily crossing genre and budget lines. He was in Westerns, comedies, dramas, horror and science fiction, low-budget exploitation pictures and major studio releases. He appeared in, among many, many other things, The Manchurian Candidate, The Creature From the Black Lagoon, Reform School girls, The Big Combo, Soylent Green, The Defiant Ones, Airport, Hid, I Was a Teenage Werewolf (and I was a Teenage Frankenstein), The Magnificent Seven…well, you can look up the list yourself. And look for your favorite—I bet he’s in it.

The trick, perhaps, was that nobody noticed. Hundreds of films and he stayed completely beneath the radar. I think I know why, too.

Actors like Demarest and Elisha Cook were desirable because they had immediately recognizable faces and voices and played immediately recognizable characters. Bissell, on the other hand, had a wide, flat, bland face and an unremarkable voice. He was a blank slate, a cipher, a kind of place holder that allowed him to play bureaucrats, hospital administrators, school officials, military officers, clerks, ministers, shop owners, undertakers—people you tend not to notice as you go through life, and certainly don’t notice onscreen if say, Frank Sinatra or Richard Conte is nearby. He was a solid, reliable actor who could easily fill any background role without standing out or stealing a scene like an Elisha Cook or Demarest might.

In fact that’s the sneaky thing—even when you see his name in the credits, even when you know he’s in the film, spotting him can be trickier than you might think. Because of the way he was used, he often appeared onscreen in any given film only briefly, and often in those moments he didn’t do much.

But it was just that invisible everymanness that he so perfectly personified that allowed Bissell to work constantly for 45 years and become one of the most prolific actors Hollywood has ever known.

I think it’s time we all raised a toast to Whit Bissell. Without him, a hell of a lot of films would be much emptier, even if we couldn’t tell exactly why.

by Jim Knipfel