Biography
Barton MacLane was a prolific film actor, making over 140 film appearances from the early 1930s to the late 1960s, but he is perhaps best known as General Peterson from the classic 1960s sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie." MacLane moved from theater to film in the early 1930s, playing a series of predominantly tough guy roles over the course of the decade. In 1938, he had the lead part in the crime drama "Prison Break." In 1941, he played the supporting part of Sam Higgins in the Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman-starring sci-fi horror film, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." In 1941, MacLane landed a supporting role in the classic film noir mystery "The Maltese Falcon," starring Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade. Later that decade, in 1948, MacLane worked with Bogart again, in a classic of another genre, the adventure-western film "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre." In 1954, MacLane appeared in an altogether different genre, with a supporting part in the James Stewart-starring biopic "The Glenn Miller Story." On TV, MacLane took a lead part in the 1960 western "Outlaws," and later in the decade appeared on two episodes of "Gunsmoke." But his most lasting pop-cultural legacy began in 1965, as the frequently befuddled General Peterson, Major Anthony Nelson's (Larry Hagman) boss on "I Dream of Jeannie," which starred Barbara Eden. MacLane passed away from cancer at age 69.
