Appearances

Title	Role	Year	Approx. Age
Kim 1950	Schoolboy	1950	17
Time of Your life	Newsboy	1948	15
My Dog Shep -- Shep Come Home	Danny Baker	1946	13
Home in Oklahoma	Duke Lowery	1946	13

Often clad in blue jeans and T-shirt, possessing a wide face with large round eyes, and dimples, Lanny Rees epitomized the all-American boy in films of the mid and late 1940s. Equally at home in comedies, dramas, and westerns, he appeared with such screen icons as James Cagney and Roy Rogers. If his film career was not very long, it was, nevertheless, busy and eventful.

Born Lanny Eliot Rees on December 14, 1933, in Veradale, Washington, Rees was the youngest of Arthur Edward and Mildred Rees?s eight children. His mother soon had Lanny taking tap dancing lessons, and with America?s entry into World War II, he began his career by entertaining troops stationed in the Spokane area. Not only did he tap dance, but also served as a junior emcee at camp shows. In 1944, with most of the Rees sons serving in the military, Lanny?s father, a heavy duty mechanic, sold their home and moved his family to Van Nuys, near Los Angeles.

Rees was enrolled in Maurie Reubens? talent school, and it was while appearing in the school?s annual talent show at the Wilshire Ebelle auditorium that he was spotted by a talent scout from RKO and asked to do a screen test. Twelve-year-old Rees took his test with actor Lee Bonnell and was hired to appear in A Likely Story (1947).

After completion, Rees was signed by RKO to a seven-year contract. His salary was $100 a week, whether he was working or not. He attended the RKO school which was located near the studio?s back gate. At that time the school consisted of one teacher and two students?Lanny and young Sharyn Moffett.

Lanny?s next movie, however, was as a loan-out to Republic Pictures for the film Home in Oklahoma (1946). Republic paid RKO $1,500 a week for Lanny?s services, while the boy actor continued to receive only $100. This, of course, was a common practice among the studios.

Directed by William Witney, the movie starred Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and the always memorable George "Gabby" Hayes. Lanny worked on the film for two weeks, one of which was spent on location at the Flying L Ranch in Davis, Oklahoma. Lanny recalls, ?I got blood poisoning shooting that picture . . . On location, we were staying at a sort of campground with an outdoor roller rink, the biggest in Oklahoma. I got a blister on my foot from skating without socks, and back in L.A. it developed into blood poisoning with dark lines running up my leg. I was taken by the studio to a doctor at the Sunset Towers Hotel on Sunset Blvd. where I received three massive shots of penicillin."

Little Iodine (1946), based on the syndicated two-panel comic strip by Jimmy Hatlo, was Lanny?s next film on loan-out. Starring Jo Ann Marlowe in the title role, the cast also included the venerable Hobart Cavanaugh and Irene Ryan, later to gain fame as Granny in television?s The Beverly Hillbillies.

My Dog Shep (1946) is one of Lanny Rees?s most well-remembered movies. A drama directed by Ford Beebe, it was shot in nine days, mostly on location at Warner?s Ranch, Iverson Ranch, and Corriganville in the San Fernando Valley. The film was highly successful at the box office.

Returning to his home studio at RKO, Lanny had a much smaller role in Banjo (1947) starring his schoolmate Sharyn Moffett.

Upon completion of Banjo, Lanny?s six-month option was not picked up by RKO, and the thirteen-year-old was now a free-lance actor attending Van Nuys Jr. and Sr. High School. His agent, Jack Pomeroy, soon found him work in a Monogram western, Law Comes to Gunsight (1947), shot on location at the Melody Ranch in Newhall.

On his next film, Reaching from Heaven (1948), Rees has only a vague recollection. He played the part of Edgar, a newsboy, and was uncredited for the first time in his career. This was followed by Republic?s California Firebrand (1948) with Monte Hale and Adrian Booth.

Based on William Saroyan?s 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Time of Your Life (1948) boasted an impressive cast that included James Cagney, William Bendix, Broderick Crawford, James Barton, and Jeanne Cagney. A William Cagney Production filmed at General Services Studios, the picture was directed by H.C. Potter, who remembered Lanny from "A Likely Story" and specifically requested him for the part of the newsboy. Although the role only involved a few days of shooting, Lanny received a run-of-the-picture contract at $100 a day for thirteen weeks. This was due to his getting a closely-cropped "butch" haircut for the part and the belief that this could limit his being hired for other roles until his hair grew back.

Footnote to Lanny?s performance in "The Time of Your Life": his character?s had to sing ?When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.? While Lanny?s singing was found perfectly acceptable by the director, his voice was dubbed by a young singer whose rendition had been recorded prior to filming.

Lanny?s next notable picture was Universal?s The Life of Riley (1949), directed, written, and produced by Irving Brecher. Lanny played Junior Riley in the film which starred William Bendix in the title role as his father and Rosemary DeCamp as his mother. In the TV series "The Life of Riley" Rees was retained from the film cast, but Bendix, who had also played Riley on radio, had to be replaced due to previous film commitments. The part was given to Jackie Gleason.

The series, which ran for one season, was made by Filmtone Productions in a little studio on Santa Monica Blvd. just east of Highland. Lanny received $125 per episode for twenty-four or twenty-five episodes, each one being rehearsed and filmed in one and a half days??Sometimes long days,? Lanny recalls. The series won an Emmy for "Best Film Made for and Viewed on Television in 1949." The Life of Riley would return to television in 1953 with William Bendix and a new cast and would run for five seasons.

By 1950, Rees had reached that awkward age for child actors, and parts became smaller and more sporadic. He had a small one-day uncredited part in M-G-M?s Kim, directed by Victor Saville and starring Errol Flynn and Dean Stockwell. In 1952, he appeared in an episode of television?s The Lone Ranger with John Hart as the masked man and Jay Silverheels as Tonto. Lanny played the role of a chemistry-loving boy who helps the Lone Ranger trick map-stealing outlaws.

He continued with uncredited roles in Don Siegel?s Count the Hours (1953) with Teresa Wright and Macdonald Carey and in Dragonfly Squadron (1954) with John Hodiak and Barbara Britton. That would be his last Hollywood film. Rees would not be seen on screen again for 36 years.

After a stinch in the U.S. Army, Rees made a return to the big screen playing a police desk sergeant in Lightning Pictures? Class of 1999, a story about robot teachers placed in a riotous school.

Lanny Rees retired in 2003 and lives with his wife in Washington where he spends his days landscaping his lawn, visiting his son?s farm, and putting old tractors back in running order. He has four sons and a daughter by his first wife, two stepsons with Natalie, a total of thirteen grandchildren, and two (at last count) great grandchildren.