http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Duff

Duff was born in Charleston, Washington, now a part of Bremerton. He graduated from Roosevelt High School in Seattle in 1932 where he began acting in school plays only after he was cut from the basketball team. Thereafter, he worked locally in the theater in Seattle until he entered the military during the Second World War where he was assigned to the Army Air Force's radio service. After the war his career improved and he quickly got his first film role as an inmate in Brute Force. His other movies include The Naked City (1948), All My Sons (1948), Calamity Jane and Sam Bass (1949), Panic in the City (1968), In Search of America (1971), A Wedding (1978) and No Way Out (1987). Duff appeared in a number of films with his first wife, actress/director Ida Lupino. One of his later performances was as Dustin Hoffman's attorney in the Academy Award-winning Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).