Aug. 12, 1963 - Funeral services for Clem Bevans (left with James Arness in 1957), the spry “old feller” of the movies and television, will be conducted at 4 p.m. at Pierce Brothers Valhalla Chapel in Los Angeles. Mr. Bevans died Sunday in Motion Picture Country Hospital after a prolonged illness. He was 83. The wiry actor with the toothbrush mustache and the quizzical eyes peering over steel-rimmed spectacles appeared in hundreds of movies since he came to Hollywood shortly after the advent of talking pictures. He made his film debut at the age of 55 in “Way Down East” (1935). Clem was always an old man. Even as a young man, he portrayed characters far older than he. Although he had been in films for years, Mr. Bevans didn’t achieve “star” status until he was 67. That was in 1945 while he was under contract to 20th Century-Fox studios. “Yeah, I’m having the time of my life,” he told an interviewer then. “I’m starting all over again.” Bevans played the neighbor of Gregory Peck in “The Yearling” (1946). However, he did occasionally play against type, for example as a Nazi spy in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Saboteur” (1942). In later years, he appeared in numerous television productions, including “The Twilight Zone,” “The Loretta Young Show,” and “Bonanza.”
