Biography
With more than 250 productions to his credit, heavy-set and stern-browed Walter Sande has a recognizable face. The prolific and omnipresent character actor started out as a musician working as a musical director at a movie theater chain owned by 20th Century Fox, which introduced Sande to the joys of acting. The pudgy musician made his film debut as a detective in the 1937 crime drama "Tenth Avenue Kid." He played a string of bit parts, often heavies, before earning a featured role in 1941's greed-fueled crime caper "The Iron Claw," in which he played a comedic sidekick to the serial's hero. This led to a similar role in the Pearl Harbor-set war adventure "Don Winslow of the Navy." His character, the humorous Lt. Red Pennington, proved so popular that Sande was asked to reprise the role in the sequel "Don Winslow of the Coast Guard." Having proved his worth as a solid sidekick, Sande went on to play second fiddle to a host of Hollywood stars, including Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, and Charlton Heston. With the 1950s came the advent of television, and Sande took to TV like a duck to water, performing in more than 70 different programs before making his final onscreen appearance in 1972 on an episode of the lauded long-running anthology series "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color."
