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Gregory was born in Bronx, New York City, New York, and reared in New Rochelle north of the city. In high school he was president of the Drama Club. He briefly worked on Wall Street as a runner in 1929 and thought of being a stockbroker, but, by 1935.
He is best known for a long career as a character actor in theater, film and television which lasted from the 1930s into the 1980s. He was equally adept at comedy and drama, and his stock-in-trade was playing authority figures – often authority figures with some sort of serious flaw.
Originally a stockbroker's assistant on Wall Street, by 1935, Gregory had turned an acting hobby into a career, With 1939's Key Largo, he moved to Broadway, where he acted in numerous productions for the next sixteen years.
In 1942, Gregory enlisted in the Navy during World War II and served from 1942 to 1945. He was advanced to Petty Officer First Class and held the rate of Yeoman. After the war's end, Gregory was discharged and returned to acting. He served for 3 years during WWII, in the U.S. Navy. He enlisted in Oct 6, 1942 and was receieved on the USS Doran from the Brooklyn, NY Recieving Station Dec 4, 1942 for duty. He was Discharged in April 1946.
Between 12 December 1942 and 28 April 1943 Doran made three voyages from New York and Norfolk to arrived at Oran on 22 June, and on 5 July got underway Casablanca. She sailed from Norfolk again 8 June, for the invasion of Sicily, screening transports off Scoglitti and providing fire support for the landings 10 July. She continued to serve in this operation with escort and patrol duty between Bizerte, Tunisia, and Sicilian ports until 21 August. Six days later she sailed from Casablanca for the United States, arriving at New York 14 September.
Returning to convoy duty, Doran made five voyages between Boston and New York and ports in the United Kingdom between 22 October 1943 and 1 May 1944. She sailed from Norfolk 17 May to return to the Mediterranean where she screened transports from Oran to Naples and conducted exercises and antisubmarine patrols off Oran and Gibraltar. She returned to New York 22 August and made one convoy voyage to Liverpool from 6 October to 1 November before sailing to the Panama Canal Zone as escort for Randolph (CV-15).
From 13 January to 26 April 1945 Doran escorted two convoys to Oran, then at Charleston, South Carolina, began conversion to a high-speed minesweeper. She was reclassified DMS-41, 30 May 1945. Her conversion and shakedown completed, she sailed from Norfolk 2 July for a month of training at San Diego, called at Pearl Harbor, and reached Okinawa on 7 October. She swept mines in the Yellow Sea and served on escort and courier duty at Shanghai, China, until 3 January 1946. Doran received three battle stars for World War II service.
Around 1955, he moved from stage to film and television. He appeared in about fifty movies. He played the buffoonish Joseph-McCarthy-like witch-hunting senator in the 1962 political psycho-drama The Manchurian Candidate, which also had work for future fellow TOS guest actors Reggie Nalder, Leslie Parrish, and Whit Bissell. He was Paul Wilkins in Call to Danger (1968), with William Smithers and Laurel Goodwin, and General Ursus in Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), again with Smithers. The film also featured Jeff Corey and Lou Wagner is the cast, and featured a musical score by Leonard Rosenman. Gregory took over a role originally written for Orson Welles.
He made well over a hundred television guest appearances and had four regular series roles. One of these – the irascible Inspector Luger on the 1975-82 ABC TV comedy Barney Miller – was to become his defining role. Ironically, the role of Luger was loosely based on Barney Ruditsky, a former New York City policeman (and an acquaintance of Barney Miller co-creator Danny Arnold) – and Gregory had actually starred as Ruditsky in the 1961 series The Lawless Years.
Gregory made over 100 TV guest appearances (including the pilot for The Wild Wild West, in which he appeared with Nehemiah Persoff); one of his more memorable was on Star Trek: The Original Series in "Dagger of the Mind", as Doctor Tristan Adams.
Gregory retired from acting around 1987 and died of natural causes in Sedona, Arizona, a few months shy of his ninety-first birthday. His widow, Anne, died at the end of 2005.
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