Lyle Talbot (February 8, 1902 - March 2, 1996), born Lisle Henderson in Pittsburgh but raised in a small Nebraska town, was a Hollywood actor best known for playing Joe Randolph on television's The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and for his long career in film from 1931 to 1960.

He began his movie career under contract to Warner Brothers in the early days of "talking pictures" and went on to appear in more than 150 films, first as a young matinee idol and later as a character actor and star of many B movies. He was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and later served on the board.

Lyle Talbot, who appeared in scores of movies from leads in Warner Bros.' B-movies to supporting roles in Edward D. Wood Jr.'s legendary kitsch was born Lysle Hollywood Henderson on February 8, 1902 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Performing was in his blood, as he was the off-spring of two Mississippi Riverboat performers. He grew up in Nebraska, but after the death of his mother, he was raised by her mother, Mary Hollywood Talbot, whose name he later bore professionally. Talbot's incredibly long and varied show business career began right after high school, when he joined a traveling tent show. Starting out as a magician-hypnotist's assistant, he worked his way up to magician before quitting the carny's life for that of the stock theater. He learned to act with stock companies, and even formed his own company in Memphis, Tennesse, "The Talbot Players." By 1931, he was in Hollywood as the talkies were maturing. He had the good looks of a star, but more importantly, he had the rich baritone voice the talkies needed. He appeared in a short and followed it up with a role in a featured picture in support of fading star H.B. Warner (Cecil B. DeMille's Christ in the first "King of Kings") before being signed by Warner Bros.-First National. The studio gave him a plum part in William A. Wellmans "Love is a Racket," co-staring with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Ann Dvorak, and the fast-talking Lee Tracy. He appeared in A-pictures in the 1930s in supporting roles, including "Three on a Match," "20,000 Years in Sing Sing" and 42nd Street (1933), but his work was mostly in B-pictures, in which he frequently played leads. Although he thoroughly enjoyed the work, acting was practiced as an assembly line operation at the time. Actors would be assigned work--- usually based on 6-day, 12-hour weeks and commit themselves to the infamous 7-year exclusive contract that included draconian suspension penalties in the fine print. Talbot, along with James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland and Bette Davis (ironically all WB contract players) were outspoken in their commitment to change working conditions for actors. He was one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild, and the first employee of the Brothers Warners to join the union, much to their ire. Talbot appeared as Commissioner Gordon in the 1949 movie serial "Batman and Robin" and was Lex Luthor in 1950's "Superman vs. the Atom Man." Virtually indiscriminate (or oblivious, possibly clueless--- who knows?) in his choice of roles, he the early 1950s, he appeared in several of 'Ed Wood''s most notorious films, including the infamous transvestite tear-jerker Glen or Glenda (1953) and the famously inept Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)--- aside from the recently deceased Bela Lugosi, he was Wood's most famous star. Talbot's acting career thrived on television, in which he appeared on from the beginning of the medium until the 1980s. He co-starred as Ozzie Nelson's friend Joe Randolph on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," and also made guest appearances on a plethora of TV series, including "Leave it to Beaver," "The Lone Ranger," ""Perry Mason," "Rawhide," "Wagon Train," "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Green Acres," "Charlie's Angels," "Newhart," "The Dukes of Hazzard" and "Who's the Boss?" Lyle Talbot died of natural causes on March 3, 1996 in his home in San Francisco, California at the age of 94, the last of the SAG founders to shuffle of this mortal coil.