Bruno William VeSota was born March 25, 1922, in Chicago, the second of three sons born to Lithuanian immigrant Kasmir and Eleanora VeSota.

His first contact with acting came when he was in the seventh grade at St. George’s, a parochial school. Sister Anne Marie (sister of actress Blanche Yurka) persuaded the chubby lad to play the old villain in the children’s play, CHRISTOPHER’S ORPHANS. Evidently, the experience sat well with the boy, for five years later, at age 19, he had decided he was going to be an actor and joined a WPA theatre in Chicago, the Hobart, where he learned all the theatre basics from acting (the modified Delsarte technique) through makeup and direction.

His directorial debut came with RICHARD III in the early Forties. From that time on, he directed everything from classics to light comedies. His first association with horror/fantasy came during this time, playing Dr. Lanyon to resident director Hobart Greenleaf’s Dr. Jekyll in a production of DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE.

After a few years with the Hobart, Bruno had a short stint on Lithuanian radio, then with English-language radio. His most impressive radio credit came when he did the voice of Winston Churchill in a semi-documentary presentation concerning the development of the atomic bomb, aired nationally by CBS the night after Hiroshima. During that same period, he joined the Actors Company of Chicago.

From 1945 to 1949, VeSota’s career moved to live television to in Chicago, first for WBKB-TV, a subsidiary of Paramount, then for WGN-TV. Work was constant. Bruno did over 2000 live TV shows as producer-director (and acted in over 200). He was involved with everything from cook shows to dramatic presentations, including two series – JEFFREY HALL, CRIMINOLOGIST and CROSS-QUESTIONS, a courtroom drama aired on CBS as THEY STAND ACCUSED. In the early Fifties, however, television work in Chicago began to decline as TV began to shift to New York City. His friend Ben Roseman, scene designer on a successful VeSota-directed production of SUMMER AND SMOKE, suggested that, with all their experience, they might find more profitable work in Hollywood.

Bruno decided to make the break and did so in July, 1952. Six months later, on January 3, 1953, he married his former WGN secretary, Genevieve O’Connor. The first of six children, Bruno Jr., was born the following December. He was followed by all-girl triplets in 1956. They preceded boy and girl twins, born in 1957.

VeSota’s first film in Hollywood was the result of an association with independent producer John Parker. DEMENTIA is a strange 73-minute film dealing with the fantasy and reality of a demented murderess (played by Parker’s secretary, Adrienne Barrett, whose incompetent performance weakens an otherwise intriguing film). VeSota helped with the screenplay and direction, as well as being listed as associate producer and playing a prominent part as a character called the Rich Man, a lecherous fellow murdered by Barrett.

The fragile financial situation of the low-budget venture resulted in its taking up months in 1952 and 1953 before completion. DEMENTIA was not released until 1956. It was while DEMENTIA’S off-and-on shooting schedule was in progress that Bruno landed his first job in a major studio film, THE SYSTEM, a Warner Brothers B starring Frank Lovejoy. He had one good scene as a gambler testifying in a courtroom. Then, over the next two years, he did bits in a number of major projects; he was most notable in THE WILD ONE. Gradually, however, he was to find notoriety in independent features, and it was these independents that were to give him a strong niche in film history.

Bruno’s official debut as a film director came in 1954, when an actor named Burt Kaiser, whom Bruno had directed in an episode of JEFFREY HALL, CRIMINOLOGIST back in Chicago, arrived in Hollywood and, by chance, bumped into VeSota. Kaiser was a fairly wealthy young man who evidently had dreams of becoming a star. He suggested Bruno write a script capable of adapting itself to a low budget and then direct it. Of course, a substantial role was to be written in for Kaiser himself (a maniacal caricaturist responsible for the murder of a film starlet). VeSota agreed. The result was FEMALE JUNGLE, filmed in 1954 but not released until 1956. It is remembered chiefly for Jayne Mansfield in her film debut and the fat director himself in a supporting role. Ironically, Bruno appeared in Mansfield’s last picture, too, SINGLE ROOM FURNISHED. From 1956 to 1963, Bruno became increasingly familiar to film audiences, appearing in over 25 films, many for Roger Corman, whose stock company at the time included players like VeSota, Allison Hayes, Jonathan Haze, Dick Miller, Barboura Morris and Ed Nelson. Of all the films he acted in during this period, VeSota remembers DADDY-O as his favourite (with Dick Contino and Sandra Giles) as the head of a dope-pushing ring, and it’s one of the best representations of a VeSota performance. My own favourite recollection (and the one Cal Beck mentioned to me when I first spoke with him) is the Fairway release, THE CHOPPERS (1962), with VeSota a crooked junkyard dealer buying stolen parts from carstripper Arch Hall, Jr. Another of Bruno’s favourites, THE LITTLE BANK ROBBER, was produced by Leon Vicman who cast his daughter Wendy in the title role of a little girl locked overnight inside a bank being robbed by VeSota and his partners. The film got extremely obscure distribution.

Bruno also directed two other shoestring-budget films during this period – THE BRAIN EATERS (1958) and INVASION OF THE STAR CREATURES (1962). In the latter, he made a cameo appearance. Though he never approved of most of the films he acted in (among which were five of the notorious Jerry Warren’s horror pictures), nevertheless, with six children in the family, Bruno found it necessary to take work whenever he could get it. Beginning around 1967, he began to refuse other offers to act in or direct low-budgeters, concentrating exclusively on more legitimate and/or valuable projects. Thus, with the exception of four or five major features, including WILD ROVERS and MILLION DOLLAR DUCK, his work after 1966 came mostly from television, where he was best known for creating the role of Sam Tucker, the bartender on BONANZA for three years. VeSota always worked TV in Hollywood (DEATH VALLEY DAYS, MR. LUCKY, LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, THE UNTOUCHABLES, SAN FRANCISCO BEAT and many others) while doing his feature work, but in his last years he had been doing television alone. He was most proud of the guest-star spot he shared with Aram Katcher on an IT TAKES A THIEF episode spoofing old Greenstreet-Lorre movies (white-haired VeSota played Greenstreet to Katcher’s Lorre). His final credits include the TV-movie SOMETHING EVIL (directed by Steven Spielberg) and episodes of McCLOUD, McMILLAN AND WIFE and KOJAK. He was also a talented caricaturist whose works lined the wall of the Crest House Restaurant on Washington Blvd. in Culver City, California..

Bruno Ve Sota died on September 24th 1976 of a heart attack in Culver City, California. Barry Brown delivered the eulogy at his funeral.

The above biography has been adapted from "It's VeSota" by Barry Brown preceding an interview on June 14, 1975.

"Downtown" sung by Petula Clark, was one of Bruno's favourite songs, he loved Petula Clark and her voice.

Bruno had a beautiful Baritone voice and sang in Latin or Italian (again, my thanks to Bruno's daughter Gracy)