Ted Bessell - A Career Tragically Cut Short
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Ted Bessell is best known for playing Donald Hollinger in NBC's That Girl. As a child, Bessell wanted to pursue a career as a classical musician, but once he entered college, he realized that he wanted to be an actor.
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He started studying with some of the greatest teachers of his generation and was cast into a number of off-Broadway stage plays. It was around this time that he also landed a job aa a page boy for ABC> that was the foot-in-the-door that he needed to weasel his way onto the television screen.
He had a number of small roles and bit parts before finding a recurring role in Gomer Pyle USMC. It was after landing that role that he was cast in That Girl as Marlo Thomas's love interest and fiance. That proved to be the biggest role of his career, but after it wrapped up in 1971, Bessell decided to focus more of his efforts on directing.
In 1996, while he was working on a film adaptation of Bewitched, Bessell suddenly passed away after suffering an aortic aneurysm. He was only 61 when he passed and he still had high hopes of containing his career in show business as a director. It's unclear how far he could have gone if his life hadn't been snuffed out so soon.
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