Biography
Debuting onscreen as the bugle boy of Company "G" in the 1953 Oscar-winning classic "From Here to Eternity," Brooklyn-born actor Don Dubbins enjoyed a quick rise to A-list leading roles opposite Hollywood heavy hitters like James Cagney and Joseph Cotten. The flaxen-haired young performer was tapped by Cagney to be his costar in a pair of '56 features, the drama "These Wilder Years" and the Western "Tribute to a Bad Man," in which Dubbins played an honorable ranch hand who nevertheless falls for ranch boss Cagney's woman. The actor, who was often cast in military roles, next appeared in the boot-camp drama "The D.I." as a gutless Marine private driven relentlessly by his take-no-prisoners drill instructor, played by "Dragnet 1967" star Jack Webb, who also directed the picture. Webb's popular crime series provided just one of Dubbins's countless television guest-starring and supporting roles; he memorably appeared in the startling '60 "Elegy" episode of "Twilight Zone," as one of a trio of astronauts marooned on a strange still-life planet. Dubbins worked practically non-stop on television for the next three decades, interrupting his run of small-screen doctors and diplomats with only the rare feature portrayal, in films like the sci-fi adventure "From the Earth to the Moon" and the mind-bending Ray Bradbury adaptation "The Illustrated Man."
