Career
Born Abe J. Siegel in Omaha, Nebraska, Stewart was known primarily as a New York stage actor. However, he also made several appearances in movies and on television before his death at age 51 in Cleveland, Ohio, following surgery. Film and television Stewart"s played Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, the real-life crime boss whose activities were central to the film Murder, Incorporated.
(1960).
He also co-starred in the rockabilly-themed film Carnival Rock (1957), for which director Roger Corman, hoping to give the film some gravitas, recruited him from New York, a point noted by actor Editor Nelson in an interview with film historian Tom Weaver. Stewart"s strong, aquiline features were well-suited to the stage but limited his on-screen roles to character parts. This may have frustrated the actor.
According to Nelson, Stewart looked at him on the set one day and remarked, "My God, what I couldn"t do with a face like that."
His other film roles were small, and, while he appeared often on live television in the 1950s, his only television roles that remain accessible were on Have Gun Will Travel, One Step Beyond, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Manitoba From United Network Command for Law and Enforcement and Naked City.
The episode was deemed too gruesome by the National Broadcasting Company Television Network and sponsor Revlon, which cancelled the network broadcast. The episode was later syndicated to local stations.
An infamous footnote in the series" history, the episode fell into public domain, and is often included in value-priced Hitchcock Digital Video Disc collections. He also appeared in the 1962 Broadway premiere of A Manitoba Foreign All Seasons and the original 1964 productions of Arthur Miller"s After the Fall and Incident at Vichy.