Every Disney Hero Has a Voice
Johnny Tremain
Hal Stalmaster
March 29th, 1940
Harry Lapidus Stalmaster, known as Hal
Stalmaster (born March 29, 1940 in Los Angeles, California), is a former actor
best known for his lead role in the 1957 Walt Disney film of the American
Revolution, Johnny Tremain, based on the 1943 Esther Forbes novel of the
same name.
Johnny Tremain
In the dramatization, Stalmaster is an apprentice silversmith
who burns his hand and requires surgery for proper healing from the noted
physician Joseph Warren, played by Walter Coy. Spurred to fight the British for
colonial independence, young Tremain joins the Sons of Liberty and participates
in the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere's ride. Walt Disney dedicated Johnny
Tremain "to the youth of the world . . . in whose spirit and courage
rests the hope of eventual freedom for all mankind." Disney continued,
"Johnny Tremain is about the nameless, unsung patriots whose hunger
for freedom made possible the independence that is enjoyed in America today."
Stalmaster is the younger brother of former actor and
casting director Lynn A. Stalmaster, a native of Omaha, Nebraska. Stalmaster
said that his brother "didn't help me one bit [in landing the role of
Johnny Tremain]. He thought I was too young to start acting and besides, he
didn't think I could act!"
Stalmaster was seventeen when Johnny Tremain was
filmed. The picture also ran as "The Liberty Story" on two segments
of Walt Disney Presents, which then aired on ABC.
Other roles
In 1957, Stalmaster also played Olympic athlete Bob
Richards as a child in the episode "Leap to Heaven" of the ABC series
Cavalcade of America. In 1959, he played the role of "Skinny"
in the episode "Misfits" of Nick Adams's unconventional western
series on ABC, The Rebel.
In 1960, Stalmaster portrayed Gwynn in three of the eight
hour-long segments of the Walt Disney Presents miniseries, The Swamp
Fox, with Leslie Nielsen in the title role of General Francis Marion of the
southern theater of the American Revolution. After The Swamp Fox ended,
Stalmaster did not act again until 1966, when he made his final performances on
two network programs: as Borden in the episode "Robbie and the Little
Stranger" of Fred MacMurray's CBS sitcom My Three Sons and as
Lieutenant Gurney in the episode "Back to the Drawing Board" on Paul
Burke's ABC adventure series about World War II, Twelve O'Clock High.
Stalmaster and his wife, Nancy E. Stalmaster, reside in Studio
City, California. They have a daughter, Caryl Schrier Stalmaster of Sherman
Oaks, California.
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