Wendell Corey began acting in 1934, making his professional debut in 1935. On Broadway after 1942, he did well enough in 1945's Dream Girl to be offered a film contract by producer Hal Wallis; he debuted on screen in Desert Fury (1947). Corey became a versatile, dependable lead actor. Over the next two decades he usually played straight arrows, though sometimes his characters were skeptical, cynical, or unsympathetic. He also served as the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and as a director of the Screen Actors Guild. Elected to the Santa Monica City Council in 1965, his political aspirations were quashed when he failed in 1966 to win a Republican Congressional primary.