Wayne Rogers Gets "The Big Kick"

Back in 2020 I posted an item about the 1959 crime film Odds Against Tomorrow which has a couple of Alabama connections, one of them tenuous. The other Alabama connection appears about midway through the movie. Robert Ryan's character goes into a bar for a drink, and a soldier and his girl are horsing around. Ryan takes offense and the final result is a fight in which the soldier ends up on the floor. The soldier is played by none other than Wayne Rogers. He was born in Birmingham on April 7, 1933. After graduating from Princeton in 1954 and a stint in the U.S. Navy until 1956, Rogers began appearing in small roles in Hollywood. His IMDB credits begin with one listing in 1958 and several in 1959, when he made appearances on the TV soap opera Search for Tomorrow and as that guy in the bar in Odds. In the 1960's he had numerous roles in TV shows ranging from Have Gun Will Travel to Gunsmoke and Honey West. He even appeared with fellow Alabama native Jim Nabors on Gomer Pyle USMC. Of…