Rex Reason (November 30, 1928 – November 19, 2015) was an American actor best known for his role in This Island Earth (1955). Life and career Rex George Reason Jr. was born in Berlin, Germany, to an American family that returned to Los Angeles shortly thereafter, where Rex was raised. He was the elder brother of actor Rhodes Reason. Rex Reason attended Herbert Hoover High School in Glendale, California and enlisted in the United States Army at the age of seventeen, serving from 1946 to 1948. He began his stage career in 1948 at the Pasadena Playhouse, performing there for three years before coming to the notice of Hollywood. In 1951 he was given a screen test at Columbia Pictures and was cast as the lead in a starring role in his first picture, a low-budget adventure drama Storm Over Tibet (1952) initially produced for MGM but acquired by Columbia Pictures. Reason was under contract for two more years at Columbia until moving to Universal-International in mid-1953, after making a promising appearance in the sword-and-sandal epic Salome (1953) with Rita Hayworth. A tall (6'3"), handsome, leading man with a distinctive baritone speaking voice, Reason appeared in several films and television shows throughout the 1950s and 1960s. He made two pictures at Universal Studios under the name "Bart Roberts" before demanding to be able to use his own name. Reason is perhaps best known for his role as stalwart, heroic scientist Dr. Cal Meacham in the science fiction This Island Earth (1955). Reason co-starred as sympathetic scientist Dr. Tom Morgan in the third—and final—installment of Universal International Pictures' Creature from the Black Lagoon horror film series in The Creature Walks Among Us (1956). He also appeared opposite Clark Gable and Sidney Poitier in Band of Angels (1957) for Warner Bros. He appeared in Badlands of Montana (1957) as an opponent of a corrupt Mayor played by John M. Pickard. In the story line, Pickard administers ten lashes with a whip to Reason's back. Reason starred as newspapermen in two television series. The first of those was a syndicated western, Man Without a Gun (1957–1959), in the role of Adam MacLean, editor of the Yellowstone Sentinel newspaper in Dakota Territory. The second was the ABC/Warner Bros. drama, The Roaring Twenties (1960–1962), a crime drama in the role of Scott Norris, reporter for the fictitious New York Record. He appeared as a guest