Brandon DeWilde appeared on "What's My Line" on January 10, 1954, when he was only eleven years old. Even then, he already had won the Donaldson Award and, that year, would win the Golden Globe Award, both as a distinguished juvenile actor in the play and film "The Member of the Wedding."
He truly showed his mettle as Ensign Jeremiah "Jere" Torrey in the epic World War II film "In Harm's Way" (1965). In that film, he portrayed the angry son of career naval officer Admiral Rockwell Torrey, who was portrayed by John Wayne. Jere felt that his dad had abandoned him and his mother for his career -- he had!
Perhaps, we best remember him as Arnold Potter, mastermind behind the theft of King Kamehameha's cape from the Bishop Museum in "The King Kamehameha Blues" (Season 2). He wore a certain arrogance that was even more pronounced than the royal cape -- until McGarrett took him and his college friends down a notch or two.
Three years later, while driving a camper van near Denver, Colorado, where he was appearing in a stage production of "Butterflies Are Free," he was involved in an accident that took his life. He was only thirty years old.
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