Karl Swenson

Acting

Karl Swenson

Born 1908-07-23 · Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Karl Swenson (July 23, 1908 – October 8, 1978) was an American theatre, radio, film, and television actor. Swenson is remembered for his role as the doomsayer in the diner in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) and as the voice of Merlin in Disney's The Sword in the Stone (1963). On television, he had numerous credits in guest roles on various shows, especially Westerns, including episodes of Bonanza, The Virginian, and Gunsmoke. He had a major recurring role as Walnut Grove founder Lars Hanson on Little House on the Prairie (1974 - 1978). Swenson also had roles in The Prize (1963), Major Dundee (1965), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Seconds (1966), Hour of the Gun (1967), ...tick...tick...tick... (1970), The Wild Country (1970), Vanishing Point (1971) and Ulzana's Raid (1972). Born in Brooklyn, New York of Swedish parentage, he originally planned to be a doctor and studied at Marietta College before pursuing acting. Swenson appeared extensively on the radio from the 1930s through the 1950s. He entered the film industry in 1943 with two wartime documentary shorts, December 7 and The Sikorsky Helicopter. Swenson was married to actress Joan Tompkins. He died of a heart attack at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington, Connecticut on October 8, 1978, shortly after filming the Little House on the Prairie episode in which his character dies. The episode aired on October 16, 1978, eight days after Swenson's death. He was interred at Center Cemetery in New Milford, Connecticut.

Acting credits

The Sword in the Stone poster
7.2

Wart is a young boy who aspires to be a knight's squire. On a hunting trip he falls in on Merlin, a powerful but amnesiac wizard who has plans for him beyond mere squiredom. He starts by trying to give him an education, believing that once one has an education, one can go anywhere. Needless to say, it doesn't quite work out that way.

The Sword in the Stone

1963

The Birds poster
7.5

Thousands of birds flock into a seaside town and terrorize the residents in a series of deadly attacks.

The Birds

1963

How the West Was Won poster
7.0

The epic tale of the development of the American West from the 1830s through the Civil War to the end of the century, as seen through the eyes of one pioneer family.

How the West Was Won

1962

Seconds poster
7.4

An unhappy middle-aged banker agrees to a procedure that will fake his death and give him a completely new look and identity; one that comes with its own price.

Seconds

1966

Judgment at Nuremberg poster
8.0

In 1947, four German judges who served on the bench during the Nazi regime face a military tribunal to answer charges of crimes against humanity. Chief Justice Haywood hears evidence and testimony not only from lead defendant Ernst Janning and his defense attorney Hans Rolfe, but also from the widow of a Nazi general, an idealistic U.S. Army captain and reluctant witness Irene Wallner.

Judgment at Nuremberg

1961

The Cincinnati Kid poster
7.0

An up-and-coming poker player tries to prove himself in a high-stakes match against a long-time master of the game.

The Cincinnati Kid

1965

The Wild Country poster
6.0

Uprooted from their comfortable home in Pennsylvania, James and Kate Tanner, along with their sons, Virgil and Andy, journey to the wild country of 1890s Wyoming to become farmers. Soon, they come face-to-face with tornadoes, bears and wolves. But through the hardships their love for each other endures, even when a local rancher sees the newcomers as "squatters" on his land, and will stop at nothing – including murder – to drive them out.

The Wild Country

1970

The Sons of Katie Elder poster
7.0

The four sons of Katie Elder reunite in their hometown of Clearwater, Texas for her funeral and discover that the family ranch is now in the hands of Morgan Hastings, a corrupt businessman who wants to exploit the area around the town.

The Sons of Katie Elder

1965

Major Dundee poster
6.7

During the last winter of the Civil War, cavalry officer Amos Dundee leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners and scouts on an expedition into Mexico to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding U.S. bases in Texas.

Major Dundee

1965

Vanishing Point poster
7.1

Kowalski works for a car delivery service, and takes delivery of a 1970 Dodge Challenger to drive from Colorado to San Francisco. Shortly after pickup, he takes a bet to get the car there in less than 15 hours.

Vanishing Point

1971

Ulzana's Raid poster
6.9

After fierce war chief Ulzana and a small war party jump the reservation bent on murder and terror, an inexperienced young lieutenant is assigned to track him down.

Ulzana's Raid

1972

Flaming Star poster
6.5

Pacer Burton, a young man of mixed Kiowa and white heritage, is caught between two worlds as conflict erupts between Native Americans and white settlers in Texas.

Flaming Star

1960

North to Alaska poster
6.5

After striking gold in Alaska, the romantic George sends his womanizing partner Sam to bring his fiancée up from Seattle. When Sam finds that she has already married, he returns instead with Angel, a dancer originally from France.

North to Alaska

1960

Lonely are the Brave poster
7.4

A fiercely independent cowboy arranges to have himself locked up in jail in order to then escape with an old friend who has been sentenced to the penitentiary.

Lonely are the Brave

1962

The Prize poster
6.7

A group of Nobel laureates descends on Stockholm to accept their awards. Among them is American novelist Andrew Craig, a former literary luminary now writing pulp detective stories to earn a living. Craig, who is infamous for his drinking and womanizing, formulates a wild theory that physics prize winner Dr. Max Stratman has been replaced by an impostor, embroiling Craig and his chaperone in a Cold War kidnapping plot.

The Prize

1963

Hour of the Gun poster
6.5

Marshal Wyatt Earp kills a couple of men of the Clanton-gang in a fight. In revenge Clanton's thugs kill the marshal's brother. Thus, Wyatt Earp starts to chase the killers together with his friend Doc Holliday.

Hour of the Gun

1967

Walk on the Wild Side poster
6.6

At a 1930s New Orleans bordello, Hallie is the main attraction for both clients and the shrewd madam. The arrival of Dove Linkhorn, her lovesick sweetheart from three years ago, disrupts the normal and triggers a chain of events involving a number of people, including the young woman he travelled with, who is now the Doll House's newest employee.

Walk on the Wild Side

1962

… tick… tick… tick… poster
6.7

Racial tensions threaten to explode when a black man is elected sheriff of a small, racially divided town in the Deep South.

… tick… tick… tick…

1970

The Hanging Tree poster
6.7

Joseph "Doc" Frail is a doctor with a past he's trying to outrun. While in Montana, he comes across a mining camp with a hanging tree and rescues a man named Rune from the noose. With Rune as his servant, Frail decides to settle down, and he takes over as town doctor. He meets Elizabeth, who is suffering from shock, and the two soon fall in love. But when Elizabeth is attacked, Frail's attempt to help her lands them both in trouble.

The Hanging Tree

1959

The Gallant Hours poster
6.7

A semi-documentary dramatization of five weeks in the life of Vice Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, Jr., from his assignment to command the U.S. naval operations in the South Pacific to the Allied victory at Guadalcanal.

The Gallant Hours

1960

No Name on the Bullet poster
6.6

When hired killer John Gant rides into Lordsburg, the town's folk become paranoid as each leading citizen has enemies capable of using the services of a professional killer for personal revenge.

No Name on the Bullet

1959

Kings Go Forth poster
6.1

When Harris applies for the position of a radioman in Loggins' army unit, he is hired immediately. While on a mission together in France, they both fall in love with Monique.

Kings Go Forth

1958

Disney's Greatest Villains poster
NR

The Slave in the Magic Mirror is the host of this show, designed to explain that all heroes need villains to balance things out. Without villains, there would be no heroes. Villains from Disney films abound here.

Disney's Greatest Villains

1977

Ice Palace poster
6.3

Alaska: America's last great wilderness frontier. A land of primitive grandeur, of glaciers, mountains and ice-fields. And of ambitious cannery tycoon Zeb "Czar" Kennedy and rugged activist leader Thor Storm, two rough-hewn men whose bitter 40-year rivalry mirrored their powerful land's struggle for statehood.

Ice Palace

1960