While appearing in some impressive stage proudctions, Edward's theatrical career was short lived. According to a Playbill from the LaJolla Playhouse in California(more info further down the page), Edward started as a bass in the Mozart Opera Company in New York and then the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company. His first show, a Japanese Opera called "Mikado," bombed literally since it premiered a few days after Pearl Harbor. It opened and closed in one day. He also appeared in such operettas as "H.M.S Pinafore" and "The Gandoliers." Within a year, he gave it all up and worked in radio. According to a playbill for "The Silver Whistle"(his 1st show with Jose Ferrer) Ed did voices on the radio show "The Greatest Story Ever Told." But Uncle Sam came calling and Edward served from 1942-1946 in the Army Air Corp as a radio operator. After the war he put his beautiful voice to good use but a musical career was not in the cards. Dennis Johnson who author's Doug Macaulay's Character Actors website said Edward became a singer in Happy Fenton's band and the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. In a 1969 Canadian TV magazine, CHBC TV Teleguide, Edward said, "I was discouraged to see people who were accepted as fine singers receive so very little financial compensation, compared with other professions and acting." So at age 31 Edward pursued acting. It was in 1947 that he got his first Broadway role in "Allegro" where he played both the mayor, a singer and a minister.

While starting out in theater,he met actor Jose Ferrer who used Edward in several Broadway shows including "The Silver Whistle"(as a minister), "Twentieth Century"(playing a train conductor and a red cap), "The Shrike"(Harry Downs) and the musical "Texas Lil' Darlin'"(playing 3 roles: William Dean Benson Jr., a Texas Ranger and Voice of 'Trend'). He also appeared in the National Touring Company of "Stalag 17"(as chief prisoner "Hoffy" Hoffman, an air corp man), one of Ed's more shocking roles. As chief ringleader of the American Prisoners, Ed's character "Hoffy" does more swearing than any other character Ed played in his career before or after. Ironically Ed's character The Chief in "Get Smart" was kidnapped in a two-part episode from Season 4 that mirrored "Stalag 17" almost exactly. In 1953, One of "Stalag 17's" stopovers included the LaJolla Playhouse in LaJolla California. The board members of the playhouse were actors Mel Ferrer and the late Gregory Peck. Edward later worked with Peck in the films "Designing Woman" and the original "Cape Fear". Unfortunately the shows Ed were in ran anywhere from one day to 10 months.
Around 1953, Edward moved to Texas to be near his brother and began anchoring the local news and kiddie birthday party show called "Uncle Eddie's Kiddie Party." He actually set up a birthday party each day for 9 kids, had to clean up afterwards and deal with annoyed parents wanting to know why THEIR child couldn't be on. After the show, Edward did the news, reporting on the exciting adventures of the local garden club. A few people in Midland Texas told me that the TV station may have been the original NBC affiliate which is now the ABC affiliate. They say that in the mid 1950's Ed came back from Hollywood to do the Labor Day March Of Dimes Telethons.

There is no exact date that I know of when Ed made the move to Hollywood. For his first film, he was tapped by Jose Ferrer to appear in "The Shrike." Ed recreated his Broadway character of Harry Downs, the brother to Jose Ferrer's Jim Downs. But, Ed apparently worked before that film. He was on the TV show "Four Star Playhouse/Four Star Performance" co-hosted by Dick Powell, in 1954. Whether Ed was already living in Hollywood trying to carve out a living, or commuting from Texas is still unknown. Either way it was his film appearance that started the ball rolling. Ed did dozens of movies in his first few years including a documentary-type film made in cooperation with the U-S Airforce. In 1958, Jose came calling again. This time he was producing a Broadway musical with Tony Randall called "Oh Captain!" It was a very racy show, chock full of sexual inuendos. Cuban bandleader Xavier Cugat was chosen as co-star First Mate Enrico Manzoni(his wife Abbey Lane played the stripper Bobo). For the premise, Randall's Capt. Henry St. James is a proper husband in England and a rougue playboy in Paris, keeping a wife and a lover without them knowing about each other. His confidant is the older and wiser First Mate Enrico Manzoni who's been living it up much longer and could teach St. James a thing or two. Playboy magazine followed the show from conception to opening night and wrote an extensive article. It mentions that during rehersals, Jose was not happy with Cugat's performance and decided to find another actor to play Manzoni. Here's how the conversation went with Jose(J) and partner Howard(H)Merrill according to Playboy May 1958:


(J)"We're replacing Cugie."
(H)"We're What?"
(J)"He Won't Do."
(H)"Who'll we get?"
(J)"I'm bringing in Eddie Platt from the coast."
(H)"Who the Hell Is Eddie Platt?"
(J)"You know who he is, for(expletive) sake. He was with me in The Shrike and about six other plays."
(H)"How much will he cost us?"
(J)"Not any more than Cugie---well maybe a little more."

If you're curious, The soundtrack for "Oh Captain" is available on CD and Edward does a fine job, though he sounds a bit like Dracula with his accent it shows how he can put so much meaning into his singing.The soundtrack for "Allegro" is also available and there's a cast picture in the CD liner notes which features Edward. It's a small picture but you can make him out(with hair) if you look closely.

Edward's other characters ran the gammut from hard knoxs police officers or prosecutors, to sympathetic fathers, lawmen, mobsters, murderers, townsfolk and school principals. He is often credited as Edward Platt, but sometimes Edward C. Platt or Ed Platt and friends refered to him as Eddie.

He possessed the greatest tool any actor can have: deep, soul searching eyes. One look from him and he conveyed more emotion than he ever could with a few lines of dialogue. The same goes for facial expressions. On many occassions you can catch Edward clench his teeth if his characters are angry or frustrated. Other times, Ed had a habit of clenching his fingers and hands when placed by his sides or even wringing his hands. Most of all he had a great smile that had the slightest hint of a smirk. A true sign of a great actor is one who can really delve into the character's psyche and Edward did so, brilliantly. In fact, many of his characters were doctors, lawyers and judges so he had to not only learn an excessive amount of legal and medical jargon but also make sure he sounded convincing.
During the 1950's and 1960's Edward was cast in dozens of films and tv shows, including the soap opera "General Hospital". He first appeared as Dr. Miller in 1963, then, according to Alex McNeil's book "Total Television," Edward came back to the show years later(unspecified) as Wyatt Chamberlain.
Despite the numerous roles, many of his characters had little dialogue or they were on and off in the first half hour. For example, his face is never shown in his appearance in "The Virginian." He played Stuart Brynmar, a burn victim but only shows up in the last 5 minutes of the show, and even then we only see the BACK of his head and when he turns around his face is covered by a black gauze. He also has only a few lines in this scene. Such apperances were frustrating to him. As he tells CHBC TV Teleguide, "People don't know your name or they haven't seen you. This is very injurious to the ego." He hardly played the heavy but when he did it was usually a well educated Godfather to the mob who would abuse women and anyone around him. Also, Ed rarely had any love scenes but when he did his characters were gentle and quite romantic.

In 1965 he was happy to land the role of the Chief in "Get Smart" but for the first season he was not billed in the open credits, but rather in the end credits. After season one, his name came right after Barbara Feldon's, pushing Mel Brooks, Buck Henry's and Leonard Stern's name a bit back(Leonard's name was a victim of the phone booth, going down with Max.) Ed told CHBC Teleguide "I get a big kick out of comedy. It has been around for a long time. I'm sure when Adam found Eve he had something funny to say." And he got the recognition he wanted.

Crew members from "Get Smart" have nothing but praise for Edward. The show's Executive Producer Leonard Stern told me how he chose Edward for the role of chief: "I saw him in ("Rebel Without A Cause") and I remembered being very impressed with that performance. When we started to cast the role I said, 'there's this actor,' I didn't know his name then, but his skills were indellibly etched in my mind. Ed was the sounding board for our comedy...we had that kind of talk and he was assuring me he understood this then suddenly out of the blue he broke out into song, and sang "Ol' Man River" in this amazing baritone voice...and showed me he could convert a mundain and conventional interview into fun. When he died he was one of those guys that was irreplacable." After "Get Smart", roles were few and far between. Ed appeared in two more Leonard Stern productions: "The Governor And JJ" and "The Snoop Sisters," Edward's second to last television/movie role. His last would be in the law drama "Owen Marshall, Counselor At Law."

During the 1970's Edward turned to producing and even had his own company: Vagabond Productions which he co-owned with producer Deno Paoli. The two made a film called "Santee" which was also directed by "Get Smart" alum Gary Nelson. According to Ed's son, Ed loved Westerns(like "Shane") especially those with endearing characters. Plus, he wanted to make a film the whole family could see, as times were rapidly changing. "Santee" was an old formula Western and could not compete with the newer ones glorified by Clint Eastwood and so it didn't do well at the box office.
Personally, Edward was a private man, not one to talk about his personal life with anyone. A religious man, he was very involved in the episcopal church, acting as Usher at the church he attended in Beverly Hills. The above-mentioned TV magazine articles are examples of the few interviews he did(check out my What's New Section and Miscellaneous section for more magazines that featured Ed). He didn't do many personal appearances like Don Adams or Barbara Feldon. The only ones I can think of are "The Jerry Lewis Show", "Laugh-In", "The Mike Douglas Show"(where he sings "Ol' Man River" and talks about his interview with Leonard Stern;this is featured in the TVLand documentary on "Get Smart") and "Hollywood Squares". This episode and others have mysteriously disappeared. There is a rumor that NBC did not have a proper archiving system in the 1960's and 1970's so they destroyed many of their films including most of the NBC versions of "Hollywood Squares." This has not been substantiated. According to Dixon Hayes who is the webmaster of the best "Hollywood Squares" website, Edward appeared twice on the NBC daytime version of the game show(it aired 5 times a week during the day from 1968-1980, on Friday nights from January-September 1968, On Saturday mornings as "Storybook Squares" from January-August 1969 and in Syndication from 1971-1980.) One of Ed's appearance was June 15th 1970 which is quite odd because at that point, NBC cancelled "Get Smart" and it was now airing on CBS. One of Ed's appearances is featured in the Peter Marshall book, "Backstage With The Hollywood Squares". For some reason he's holding up a golf club as other squares are holding up some kind of memento.

Getting back to "Get Smart", Ed was quite different from the Chief. Edward's son told me that, even though as the Chief we see him smoke 7 times in "Get Smart's" run, Edward used to smoke a pipe and then turned to cigarettes, smoking about a pack a day of Parliaments. And unlike the Chief who rarely drank in the show, Edward also enjoyed an evening drink but stopped drinking all together during the run of "Get Smart", prefering Iced Tea instead. On March 19th 1974, just a month after his 58th Birthday, Edward passed away in Santa Monica California and his ashes scattered along the Pacific Ocean. He had a daughter with his first wife, and had a daughter and two sons with his second wife.

If you want more detailed information about Edward's TV appearances, check out my links section.