Vintage postcard.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W. 819. Photo: Universal International.
Handsome, blue-eyed looker
Irish-American Scott Brady was born in Brooklyn in 1924 as Gerard Kenneth Tierney (called Jerry). His parents were Lawrence and Maria Tierney. His father, chief of New York's aqueduct police force, had always had show business intentions and after retiring from the force he got, through his sons, some work in print advertising.
Both Scott's older and younger brothers, Lawrence Tierney and Edward Tierney went on to become actors as well. Lawrence's promising Film Noir 'bad guy' career was sabotaged by a severe drinking disorder that led to numerous skirmishes with the law. Scott himself faced a narcotics charge in 1957 (charges were dropped, Scott maintained that he was framed) and in 1963, he was involved in illegal bookmaking activities.
Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "Fortunately, Scott was more cool-headed and wound up avoiding the pitfalls that befell his older brother, making a very lucrative living for himself in Hollywood throughout the 1950s and early 1960s."
Scott Brady grew up in Westchester County and attended Roosevelt and St. Michael's High Schools. Like his older brother Lawrence, Scott was an all-around athlete in school and earned letters for basketball, football and track and expressed early designs on becoming a football coach or radio announcer. Instead, he enlisted before graduating from high school and served as a naval aviation mechanic overseas. During his term of duty, he earned a light heavyweight boxing medal.
He was discharged in 1946 and decided to head for Los Angeles where his older brother Lawrence was making encouraging strides as an actor. Toiling in menial jobs as a cabbie and day-time labourer, the handsome, blue-eyed looker was noticed having lunch in a café by producer Hal B. Wallis and offered a screen test. The test did not fare well but, not giving up, he enrolled in the Bliss-Hayden drama school under his G.I. Bill, studied acting, and managed to rid himself of his thick Brooklyn accent.
British postcard in the Film Star Series by "The People" Show Parade Picture Service, London, no. P. 1155. Photo: Universal International.
British postcard in the Greetings Series. Photo: 20th Century Fox.
Minor cult status as a bad hombre
Scott Brady signed with a minor league studio, Eagle-Lion, and debuted in the poverty-row programmer In This Corner (Charles Reisner, 1948), utilising his boxing skills from his early days in the service. He showed more promise with his second and third films Canon City (Crane Wilbur, 1948) and He Walked by Night (Alfred L. Werker, 1948), the latter as a detective who aids in nabbing psychotic killer Richard Basehart.
Scott switched over to higher-grade action stories for Fox and Universal over time. Westerns and crime stories would be his bread-winning genres with The Gal Who Took the West (Frederick De Cordova, 1949) opposite Yvonne De Carlo and Charles Coburn, and Undertow (William Castle, 1949), with John Russell, being prime examples.
He frequently switched from hero to heavy during his peak years. In one film he would romance a Jeanne Crain in The Model and the Marriage Broker (George Cukor, 1951) or a Mitzi Gaynor in Bloodhounds of Broadway (Harmon Jones, 1952), while in the next beat Shelley Winters to a pulp in Untamed Frontier (Hugo Fregonese, 1952).
A favourite pin-up hunk in his early years, he hit minor cult status as a bad hombre, The Dancin' Kid, in the offbeat Western Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954). He and the other manly men, however, were somewhat overshadowed in the film by the Freudian-tinged gunplay between Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge.
Other roles had him sturdily handling the action scenes while giving the glance over to such diverting female costars as Barbara Stanwyck, Mala Powers and Anne Bancroft.
Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 315. Photo: Universal International.
British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D. 628. Photo: RKO Radio. Scott Brady in Montana Belle (Allan Dwan, 1952).
A character heavy or hard-ass cop
Scott Brady would mark the same territory in TV - Westerns and crime films - finding steadier work on the smaller screen into the 1960s. He starred as the title hero in the Western series Shotgun Slade (1959). The stage was also a sporadic source of income with such productions as 'The Moon Is Blue', 'Detective Story' and 'Picnic'.
He made his Broadway debut as a slick card sharpie opposite Andy Griffith and Dolores Gray in the short-lived musical 'Destry Rides Again' in 1959. Scott played the villainous role Brian Donlevy played in the original.
He later did the national company of the heavyweight political drama 'The Best Man' with his portrayal of a senator. The seemingly one-time confirmed bachelor decided to settle down after meeting and marrying Mary Tirony in 1967 at age 43. Prior to this, he had been linked with such luminous beauties as Gwen Verdon and Dorothy Malone. The couple had two sons: Timothy and Terence.
Parts dwindled down in size in later years and he gained considerable weight as he grew older and balder, but he still appeared here and there as an occasional character heavy or hard-ass cop in less-important films such as Doctors' Wives (George Schaefer, 1971), $ (Richard Brooks, 1971) with Warren Beatty, The Loners (Sutton Roley, 1972) and Wicked, Wicked (Richard L. Bare, 1973). Minor TV roles in mini-movies also came his way at a fair pace. Towards the end, he was seen in such high-profile big-screen movies as The China Syndrome (James Bridges, 1979) and Gremlins (Joe Dante, 1984).
Scott had a collapse in 1981 and was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive respiratory disease. He later relied on an oxygen tank. He died of the disease four years later and was interred at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Scott's brother Edward Tierney became a building contractor after quitting as an actor, and Scott financed several of his projects. One of these included the apartment building where the infamous Wonderland murders took place. According to Scott's son Tim, Scott had a falling out with brother Lawrence Tierney in the late 1960s that lasted nearly two decades. His son Terence also became an actor.
German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, no. 1102. Photo: Corona / Schorchtfilm. Scott Brady in Mannequins für Rio/They were so Young (Kurt Neumann, 1954).
French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, offered by Les Carbones Korès "Carboplane", no. 681. Photo: United Artists.
Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.
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