(1903-1974) Warren Hull was born John Warren Hull on January 17, 1903 in Gasport, New York. He attended New York University but later left to study voice, breaking into show business as a light-operatic baritone, and as a radio announcer in 1923. He travelled to Hollywood in the mid-Thirties and became a contract player for Warner Bros in 1935. For the next few years he thrived as a B-picture leading man of both dramas and musical comedies. Two films from this period with Boris Karloff are notable: The Walking Dead (1936) and The Night Key (1937), also starring Jean Rogers of Flash Gordon fame.

Hull left Warners for bigger parts in smaller-budget fare, soon finding himself cast -- perfectly! -- in his first serial, The Spider's Web (Columbia, 1938). Hull is the very picture of John Fleming Gould's Richard Wentworth, aquits himself well as The Spider (though he is often doubled by David O'Brian for stuntwork), and shines unexpectedly in his delightful portrayal of Wentworth's underworld persona Blinky McQuade. The rushed shooting schedules of serials was such that Hull often found himself moving between the three characters just as quickly as Richard Wentworth did on screen.

After he clicked with audiences as The Spider, Hull went on to embody other established heroes -- Mandrake the Magician and The Green Hornet. Shortly after playing the Spider a second time in 1941, Hull went back to radio broadcasting and later found success in early television as a game show host. Warren Hull died of heart failure in Waterbury Connecticut at the age of 71.

Dancing

1937

Night Key

Mandrake