Actor and chiropractor; Born November 9, 1936; Died May 12, 2007.
By his mid-teens, Teddy Infuhr had appeared in more than 100 Hollywood movies, including such classics as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).
These were often small and uncredited roles. But although he appeared for only a matter of seconds in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), the entire film pivoted on his one scene: Gregory Peck played a murder suspect struggling with repressed memories and Infuhr played the brother he accidentally killed many years before when he knocked him onto railings.
Infuhr, who died at home in California at the age of 70, was a regular in two popular 1940s film series featuring Rusty the dog and Ma and Pa Kettle.
He was born Theodore Edward Infuhr in St Louis in 1936, moved with his family to Los Angeles as an infant, was spotted by a talent scout and made his film debut when he was five in The Tuttles of Tahiti (1942) with Charles Laughton.
He worked steadily in the 1940s, often playing bullies and brats, although he was reputedly one of the few child actors who passed muster with Natalie Wood's mother and was allowed to talk to Wood on set. They appeared together in the family drama Driftwood (1947).
Other notable films include the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Spider Woman (1944), in which he was a mute boy who ate flies, The Bishop's Wife (1947) and They Live by Night (1948). After the schoolroom drama Blackboard Jungle (1955) he retired from movies while still in his teens and became a chiropractor.
Infuhr practised his second trade in Silverlake, California, for 47 years.
He never regretted quitting showbiz, looked back fondly on his days as a child star and attended fan conventions.
He is survived by his wife, two sons and two grandchildren.
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