Kirby Grant

About Kirby Grant

Who is it?: Actor, Soundtrack
Birth Day: November 24, 1911
Birth Place:  Butte, Montana, United States
Died On: October 30, 1985(1985-10-30) (aged 73)\nBrevard County, Florida, U.S.
Birth Sign: Sagittarius
Cause of death: car accident
Resting place: Missoula, Montana
Occupation: Actor Musician
Years active: 1934–1959
Spouse(s): Carolyn J. Gillis Grant (1928–1989)
Children: Kendra, Kristen, Kirby Grant, III

Kirby Grant Net Worth

Kirby Grant was born on November 24, 1911 in  Butte, Montana, United States, is Actor, Soundtrack. As a child, Kirby received a scholarship to the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. Kirby won the scholarship as a violinist and singer, but he also dabbled as a sculptor. He would play a violinist in the film, I Dream Too Much (1935), which starred Henry Fonda. While his movie career was less than spectacular, he did have the lead in a number of low- budget westerns and also played a Canadian Mountie in low-budget adventures. But it would be Television, where Kirby would gain the kind of fame that would follow him for the rest of his life. "Out of the blue of the western sky comes Sky King". Sky King (1951) was a Television series where Kirby played a wealthy gentleman rancher who used his twin engine Cessna to capture the evil ones. As everyone knows, the plane was called the "Song Bird", his ranch was "the Flying Crown Ranch", located near "Grover, Arizona", and he had a niece named Penny and a nephew named Clipper. Kirby was a lifelong flying enthusiast taught to fly by barnstormers in the 1920's. "Sky King" was a huge success and Kirby made approximately 130 episodes which guaranteed syndication. After the show ended, Kirby traveled with the Carson and Barnes Circus and retired in 1970. He later bought the title and rights to the show, Sky King (1951), and became a public relations director for Sea World in Florida.
Kirby Grant is a member of Actor

💰 Net worth: Under Review

Some Kirby Grant images

Biography/Timeline

1929

It has been reported that Kirby Grant's pilot's license was issued in 1929. There are many anecdotal reports of Grant flying airplanes at air shows.

1939

In 1939 the Gateway to Hollywood talent-search contest awarded him a movie contract. These "Gateway" contracts were already prepared with fictitious screen names (thus Josephine Cottle became "Gale Storm" and Ralph Bowman became "John Archer"; Grant won with Dorothy Howe, who became "Virginia Vale"). Grant's contract was made out to "Robert Stanton," and Grant used the pseudonym in his earliest films before adopting his first and middle names professionally. "Robert Stanton" and "Virginia Vale" were introduced in the RKO Radio Pictures feature Three Sons, with Edward Ellis and william Gargan. For the next few years Grant freelanced among various studios; his most familiar picture from this period (as Kirby Grant) is probably Blondie Goes Latin, a 1941 film with Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake.

1940

These seven westerns established Kirby Grant as an action star. In the late 1940s Monogram Pictures hired him for a series of mounted-police adventures, featuring "Chinook the Wonder Dog." Grant was working in this capacity when television beckoned in 1951 with the contemporary series Sky King.

1943

In 1943, Grant signed with Universal Pictures, where he played romantic leads in B musicals, and in Abbott and Costello and Olsen and Johnson comedies. His smooth baritone voice got him teamed with Universal's singing star Gloria Jean for two features in 1944, and then Universal selected him to replace Rod Cameron (who had just been promoted to more important roles) as the studio's B-Western series star in 1945. Grant also appeared briefly in the 1943 submarine picture Destination Tokyo, playing the role of Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, organizer of the famous Doolittle Raid on Japan.

1951

Grant starred in the series Sky King during its entire run from 1951 to 1959, filming 72 episodes in all. He played Arizona rancher-pilot Schuyler "Sky" King, who fought bad guys and rescued people with his airplane. Early villains were bank Robbers and kidnappers; some later foils were Russian spies and saboteurs. Sky's first airplane was a Cessna T-50 (known among pilots as the "Bamboo Bomber" because of its wooden wings), and later a much more modern Cessna 310B. Sky's airplanes were named "Songbird". Sky and his niece Penny, played by Gloria Winters, lived on the "Flying Crown Ranch". The series called for Grant to wear the same outfit in each episode. This was a Common practice in the early days of television: the series regulars in Adventures of Superman and Dragnet, for Example, always wore the same outfits so different episodes could be filmed at the same time, and file footage could be added to new footage without anyone noticing.

1965

Grant did little acting after Sky King ended, although he and Gloria Winters were in demand for personal appearances at fairs and aviation events. He traveled with the Carson and Barnes Circus from 1965 to 1967. Grant retired in 1970. Sky King continued to play in reruns from 1959 to 1966, but Grant received no residuals.

1970

Kirby Grant is listed as the recording Artist on two Wizard Records singles, #245-A "Loving Time" and 245-B "Letter from Tina" circa 1970.

1985

At about 8 a.m. on October 30, 1985, Grant was killed in an automobile accident west of Titusville in Brevard County, Florida. Three vehicles were traveling east bound in single file, Grant was in the third vehicle. He pulled out of line (to the left) to pass both vehicles in front of him, when the middle vehicle also pulled out to pass at the same time. To avoid a collision, Grant suddenly swerved further left, and went onto the shoulder of the oncoming lane, he then over-corrected back all the way to the right, when his vehicle left the roadway and spun into a ditch, which contained three feet of standing water. Grant was thrown out of his car and into the water. A passerby pulled him out, and he was taken to Jess Parrish Hospital in Titusville, but was dead on arrival. That morning, Grant was en route from his condominium in Winter Spings to the Kennedy Space Center to watch the (last successful) launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger at Cape Canaveral. He was to have been honored by the astronauts for encouraging aviation and space FLIGHT. He was 73 years old. Kirby is interred in Missoula, Montana.