The veteran Hollywood actor, Lloyd Bridges, has died in Los Angeles. He was 85.

Bridges began his film career as an actor in westerns in 1941. Among his best-known screen performances was in the 1952 classic High Noon as the calculating deputy sheriff who refuses to aid the sheriff played by Gary Cooper.

Known as one of Hollywood's hardest-working actors, Bridges was born in California and after studying political science at the University of California, went to Broadway where he made his debut in a modern-dress version of Othello.

From Broadway, he went to Hollywood where his rugged appearance helped him build a career at first in westerns and later in science fiction and action films.

Younger audiences cherished his polished sense of timing in the Airplane series of comedy movies in the early 1990s. He played a gruff air traffic controller trying to guide endangered planes to safe landings, while smoking up a storm and drinking himself into oblivion.

He starred in several television series including The Lloyd Bridges Show and Sea Hunt, as well as scores of movies in which he frequently played the villain.

He played Harry Helmsley in the 1990 TV movie The Queen of Mean about hotel magnate Leona Helmsley.

Self-confessed Communist

In the early 1950s, Bridges admitted to being a former member of the Communist Party and was a key witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was probing communist influence in the film industry.

Bridges credited his wife, the actress Dorothy Simpson, with helping him build one of Hollywood's longest-running careers.

In a 1994 interview with the Los Angeles Times, he said: "My career, what there is, didn't happen that easy. Thought I'd never get in that door.

"But I married someone who had faith in me. It helped, that's where a good marriage comes in."
 

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