"Time Tunnel" Character Actor Whit Bissell 1996 Westwood Village Cemetery

 

Whitner Nutting "Whit" Bissell (25 October, 1909 – 5 March 1996) was an American actor.

In a career that began in 1943 with the film Holy Matrimony, Bissell appeared in literally hundreds of films and television series episodes.

Viewers of 1950s low-budget science fiction, horror films and B movies know him as one of "those actors" (perhaps the actor) that always shows up somewhere in such movies.

Bissell appeared in the classic episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" of Star Trek, footage of which was re-used in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's "Trials and Tribble-ations."

Bissell's most-screened motion picture role is as the undertaker (who sees every man, no matter his race, as "just another future customer") in The Magnificent Seven (1960).

Bissell received a life career award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films in 1994. He also served for many years on the board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild, as well as representing the actors branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences board of governors.

Bissell was married three times and had three daughters and a stepson.

Bissell died in 1996 in Woodland Hills, California from the effects of Parkinson's disease. He was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.