Career

Homeier began acting as Skippy Homeier at the age of 11, on the radio show Portia Faces Life. At the same age, he also did "dramatic commercial announcements" on The O'Neills and Against the Storm on radio. In 1942, he also joined the casts of Wheatena Playhouse and We, the Abbotts. From 1943 until 1944, he played the role of Emil in the Broadway play, and film Tomorrow, the World. Cast as a child indoctrinated into Nazism, who is brought to the United States from Germany following the death of his parents, Homeier was praised for his performance. He played the troubled youngster in the 1944 film adaptation of Tomorrow, the World and received good reviews playing opposite Fredric March and Betty Field as his American uncle and aunt.

Although Homeier worked frequently throughout his childhood and adolescence, playing wayward youths with no chance of redemption, he did not become a major star, but he did make a transition from child actor to adult, especially in a range of roles as delinquent youths, common in Hollywood films of the 1950s.

In 1954, he guest-starred in an episode of the NBC legal drama Justice, based on cases of the Legal Aid Society of New York. Thereafter, he was cast in an episode of Steve McQueen's Wanted Dead or Alive, a CBS western series. Homeier played a man sought for a crime who is innocent but distrusts the legal system to provide justice. Fleeing from McQueen in the role of bounty hunter Josh Randall, the Homeier character leaps to his death from a cliff.

Homeier appeared as Kading in the episode "The Post" of the 1958 NBC western Jefferson Drum, starring Jeff Richards.

Homeier played the young gunfighter who badgered and shot down Gregory Peck in The Gunfighter (1950). He then appeared in the westerns, The Burning Hills and with Randolph Scott in Budd Boetticher's The Tall T (1957) and Comanche Station (1960). He played a villain in Day of the Bad Man.

He played strong character roles in war films, such as Halls of Montezuma (1950, Beachhead) and Sam Fuller's Fixed Bayonets (1951). In 1954 he appeared on CBS Television's Studio One in "The Death and Life of Larry Benson", in which he portrayed a psychically damaged Korean War veteran.

In 1959, he was cast as Ches Ryan in the episode "The Bandit" of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series, Lawman, starring John Russell. In the story line, Ryan absconds with stolen money but comes upon a cabin with two persons burning with fever from a plague. When Marshal Troop arrives and is also stricken, Ryan stays behind to nurse all three victims back to health. Troop takes Ryan back to face justice but believes that the criminal has reformed.

From 1960 to 1961, Homeier starred in the title role in Dan Raven, a crime drama on NBC set on the famous Sunset Strip of West Hollywood, California, with a number of celebrities appearing in guest roles as themselves. In the summer of 1961, he appeared in an episode of The Asphalt Jungle. He made two guest appearances on Perry Mason, both times as the defendant. In 1961, he played Dr. Edley in "The Case of the Pathetic Patient," and in 1965, he played Police Sgt. Dave Wolfe in "The Case of the Silent Six."

Skip guest-starred in the WWII T.V. series “COMBAT!” in 3 episodes: “Night Patrol” - Season 1, Episode 22 (1963), “The Imposter” - Season 3, Episode 10 (1964), and “Entombed” - Season 5, Episode 16 (1967).

Homeier played a pastor, Ben Darniell, in Carson City, Nevada, in the 1965 oddly-titled episode, "Fighting Sky Pilot," of the syndicated western series, Death Valley Days. In the story line, Darniell attempts to rescue a saloon girl, Claire Vernon (Carol Brewster), from her oppressive employer. Raymond Guth played the minister's friend, Joker Smith.

Homeier was cast in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) with Don Knotts. Homeier frequently appeared as a guest star, usually a villain, in all four of Irwin Allen's science-fiction series in the mid-to-late 1960s. He guest-starred in two episodes of the original Star Trek television series, "Patterns of Force", and "The Way to Eden". In 1964 he guest starred in the Addams Family episode "Halloween With The Addams Family" with Don Rickles. Between 1964 and 1967, he guest-starred in three episodes of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" : "The Amphibians", "The Day The World Ended" and "Attack!".

In the 1970-1971 season, Homeier, at the age of forty, co-starred as Dr. Hugh Jacoby in the CBS series, The Interns, based on a film of the same name. His costars were Broderick Crawford as the hospital administrator, Christopher Stone as Dr. Jim Hardin, and Mike Farrell as Dr. Sam Marsh.

Select filmography

• Arthur Takes Over (1948)
• The Gunfighter (1950)
• Halls of Montezuma (1951)
• Fixed Bayonets (1951)
• Beachhead (1954)
• Cry Vengeance (1954)
• Ten Wanted Men (1955)
• Dakota Incident (1956)
• The Burning Hills (1956)
• The Tall T (1957)
• Comanche Station (1960)
• Stark Fear (1962)
• Showdown (1963)
• Bullet for a Badman (1964)
• The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966)
• Helter Skelter (1976)
• The Greatest (1977)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]