Claude Akins Net Worth

Claude Akins's Quotes

• Between the war movies I've been in and the heavies I've played, I have about 1,000 dead behind me. I've been killed a good many times, but I took a lot of guys with me.
• I was very fortunate that I get paid for what I love to do. I know a lot of good actors who simply can't find work. Every time I get a job, I say to myself, 'You've beaten the odds.'
• [on his role in From Here to Eternity (1953)] My first scene on film was where I walk into the office and report Private Prewitt absent to Sergeant Warden, played by Burt Lancaster -- and I was scared to death. Burt was one of the big stars of that era, but still very nice. Fred Zinnemann, the director, was extremely patient and understanding. And somehow I got through it. My panic has always been the time right up to the end of my first scene. Once that first shot is in the can, I'm home free.
• A guy who looks like Robert Redford will most often be cast as a hero. A guy like me or Ernie Borgnine plays a lot of heavies. If you're big, they think you're tough. And if you're tough, they think you're dumb.
• Hell, acting is acting, whether it's for the movies, TV or the stage,

Interesting Facts about Claude Akins

1. A lifelong golfer, he played in a lot of pro-am golf tournaments for various charities right up until his death, including the Vantage Championship Pro-Am at Tanglewood Park in Clemmons, North Carolina, in the early 1990s. He was a close friend and golfing partner of another golf fanatic and veteran movie heavy, Robert J. Wilke.
2. He was always very friendly to everyone and was very gracious in signing every autograph request.
3. He has an entry in Jean Tulard's "Dictionnaire du cinéma/Les acteurs" published in Paris in 2007 by Robert Laffont/Bouquins, pg. 17 (ISBN: 978-2-221-10895-6).
4. Played chess with his friend, William Windom.
5. Served as a Master Sergeant in the US Army Signal Corps during World War II.
6. During the 1980s and 1990s, Akins appeared in many television commercials as the spokesmen for AAMCO transmission, with the slogan "Double A, [honk, honk], M, C, O".
7. Invested well in later years in a shopping center in the San Fernando Valley and in a 69-house development in Vista, California.
8. Akins majored in speech and theater at Northwestern University. Later, he trained at the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia in the late 1940s and toured in such shows as "The Hasty Heart" and "The Comedy of Errors". He made his Broadway debut in a small, uncredited role in "The Rose Tattoo" in 1951.
9. First performed at the age of 5 in a church play in which he played a bird.
10. The son of Ernest, a former stonecutter who later became a policeman, and Maude Akins, Claude had an older sister named Hazel. The family moved from Nelson, Georgia to Bedford, Indiana when Claude was six months old. Bedford, Indiana, hosts the Claude Akins Memorial Golf Scramble each September. The tournament is a 6-person scramble format. Proceeds from the scramble fund two scholarships for graduating seniors of the local high school, Bedford-North Lawrence.
11. Before acting he was a limestone salesman.
12. Claude Akins lost his bid to be elected President of the Screen Actors Guild in 1975. The winner was Kathy Nolan (The Real McCoys).
13. Appeared with Sidney Poitier in two films, "Porgy and Bess" and "The Defiant Ones".
14. Appeared with Andy Griffith in "Onionhead: and "Matlock: The Thoroughbred".
15. Appeared with From Here to Eternity (1953) co-star George Reeves in Adventures of Superman: Peril by Sea (1956) in 1956.
16. Appeared with his Movin' On (1972) costar, Frank Converse in Killer on Board (1977).
17. Although not known as a singer, Akins co-hosted the 15th Academy of Country Music Awards. He also sang in an episode of Movin' On (1974).