Simon Oakland Movies and Career Information

Simon Oakland (August 28, 1915 – August 29, 1983) was an American actor of stage, screen, and television. Oakland was born in Brooklyn, New York City. He began his performing arts career as a musician (he was a violinist, an avocation he would pursue during his entire career as an actor). He began his acting career in the late 1940s. He enjoyed a series of Broadway hits, including Light Up the Sky, The Shrike and Inherit the Wind, and theater was one of his lasting passions. He was a concert violinist until the 1940s. Oakland made his film debut as the "tough, but compassionate" journalist who speaks up for Susan Hayward's Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! in 1958. Oakland would wind up playing this type often over the course of his career. He went on to play a long series of tough guy types, usually in positions of authority, most notably in Psycho, in which he plays the psychiatrist who explains Norman Bates's multiple personality disorder. He also appeared in West Side Story, Bullitt, and the science fiction television series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Simon Oakland died of cancer, one day after his 68th birthday (29 August 1983), in Cathedral City, California.