Jan Merlin (born Jan Wasylewski, April 3, 1925 – September 20, 2019) was an American character actor, television writer, and author. Early years Born Jan Wasylewski and reared in New York City, Merlin was of Polish ancestry. He attended the Grace Church School for Boys before dropping out to join the Navy. He later graduated from the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. During World War II, he enlisted in the United States Navy and became a torpedoman. Career After Merlin's discharge, he worked in summer stock beginning in 1946, and then enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater, making his Broadway debut in 1949 in Mister Roberts starring Henry Fonda. His professional acting career, which spanned more than five decades, included performances in stage plays on and off Broadway, radio dramas, live and filmed episodes of television series, and more than 30 feature motion pictures. His most recent performances were in live radio dramas broadcast in June 2010. In his film and television work, Merlin was frequently cast as the heavy, and consequently his character very often died onscreen. An early role for him was in the 1956 western playing Billy a small town boy getting mixed up with a gunfighter that dropped in the town in A Day of Fury. In 1960, Merlin played Travers in Hell Bent for Leather, and his other film credits include roles in Guns of Diablo (1965), The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967), Take the Money and Run (1969), The Twilight People (1972), I Escaped from Devil's Island (1973), The Slams (1973), The Hindenburg (1975) and Time Trackers (1989). Merlin had co-starring roles in two television series: from 1950 to 1953 as Cadet Roger Manning in Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, and in 1959 as Lieutenant Colin Kirby in the ABC western series The Rough Riders. In 1958, he played Kenneth on the NBC drama Kitty Foyle. In 1960, he was cast as Mick Norton in the episode "Hostage Island" of the ABC adventure series The Islanders, set in the South Pacific. Also in 1960 he again died on the screen in S3E10 of Gene Berry's TV Western series Bat Masterson, playing a wild gun slinging cowboy, the troubled son of a deceased war hero whose mother left him when he was a child, in the episode "Last Stop To Austin". He also appeared as Hendry Grant in the 1961 episode "First