- published: 01 Aug 2015
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Nolan is a surname, of Irish origin from Ó Nualláin [1], with alternate spellings including Nolen, Noland, Nolin, and Nalon, and may refer to:
Lloyd Benedict Nolan (August 11, 1902 – September 27, 1985) was an American film and television actor.
Nolan was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Margaret and James Nolan, who was a shoe manufacturer. He began his career on stage and was subsequently lured to Hollywood, where he played mainly doctors, detectives, and police officers in many movie roles.
He was a brother to the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Sigma Rho chapter).
Although Nolan's acting was often praised by critics, he was, for the most part, relegated to B pictures. Despite this, Nolan costarred with a number of well-known actresses, among them Mae West, Dorothy McGuire, and former Metropolitan Opera soprano, Gladys Swarthout. Under contract to Paramount and 20th Century Fox studios, he assayed starring roles in the late 30s and early-to-mid 40s and appeared as the title character in the Michael Shayne detective series. Raymond Chandler's novel The High Window was adapted from a Philip Marlowe adventure for the seventh film in the Michael Shayne series, Time to Kill (1942). The film was remade five years later as The Brasher Doubloon, truer to Chandler's original story, with George Montgomery as Marlowe.