Anthony Eisley (January 19, 1925 – January 29, 2003) was an American actor best known as one of the detective leads, Tracey Steele, in the ABC/Warner Brothers television series Hawaiian Eye, with costars Robert Conrad, Connie Stevens, and Poncie Ponce.

Biography

Born Frederick Glendinning Eisley in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, whose father was a general sales manager for a large corporation. He was the father of Amanda Eisley, Jonathan Erickson Eisley, Nan R. Eisley, David Glen Eisley and grandfather of actress India Eisley.




Stage work
Following service in the United States Navy, he took drama classes at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, and then landed his first acting job in a Pennsylvania stock company production of A Slight Case of Murder, which starred veteran actor James Dunn. Eisley also acted in the stage play productions of Picnic, Mister Roberts, and The Desperate Hours.


Early career
His first on-screen role was as a military policeman in the 1952 movie Fearless Fagan. In 1953, he began appearing on television. In 1958, he was cast in the episode "The Trial" of the American Civil War drama Gray Ghost with Tod Andrews. Eisley was in the 1959 Roger Corman film The Wasp Woman, which he described as "a hell of a lot of fun". Eisley's big break was being discovered playing opposite Jerry Paris in a Pasadena, California production of Who Was That Lady I Saw You With? where he was signed to a contract with Warner Bros. In the days of Tab, Ty, and Rock, Warner Bros. did not want a leading man with the name of "Fred" so they changed his first name to "Anthony".

In 1957, Eisley played Joe Foss in the episode "Jose Foss, Devilbird" of the military television series Navy Log. Foss was a World War II Medal of Honor winner who later became the governor of South Dakota and an American sportsman. The episode also features Mason Alan Dinehart as Marly.


Hawaiian Eye
Eisley was best known for his starring role in the series Hawaiian Eye, which aired from 1959 to 1963. After being seen in the play Who Was That Lady? he was signed to Warner Bros. Eisley changed his name from Fred to Anthony at the request of the studio. Anthony had thought he would play a comedian but Warner Brothers Television placed him in a suave private eye role in Hawaiian Eye. Eisley said that he left after the third season to be replaced by Troy Donahue as a hotel social director, Philip Barton. In the two previous seasons, Donahue had portrayed the detective Sandy Winfield, II, on another ABC/WB series, Surfside 6, set on a houseboat in Miami Beach. Donahue was eleven years Eisley's junior.

When a television critic attacked Hawaiian Eye, Eisley penned a reply that was printed in the critic's newspaper column: "I too would like to see more food for thought on television. I have children whose viewpoints will be largely affected in certain areas by their many hours gazing at the one-eyed monster. But our world is solemn enough as it is. I'd hate to limit them -- or myself -- to a leisure-time diet devoid of laughter, adventure and romance."

During his Warner Brothers period, Eisley also appeared in Portrait of a Mobster (1961).


Support of school prayer
In 1964, Eisley emceed a "Project Prayer" rally attended by 2,500 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. The gathering sought to flood the United States Congress with letters in support of school prayer, following two decisions in 1962 and 1963 of the United States Supreme Court which struck down the practice as in conflict with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Eisley declared that the nation was facing in 1964 "an ideological crisis. Movie stars and the stars of the entertainment world will tell you what you can do about it. Everything will be from the heart." Eisley was joined at the event by Walter Brennan, on whose series The Real McCoys he had once been a guest star, Rhonda Fleming, Lloyd Nolan, Dale Evans, Pat Boone, and Gloria Swanson. Eisely added that John Wayne, Ronald W. Reagan, Roy Rogers, Mary Pickford, Jane Russell, Ginger Rogers, and Pat Buttram would also have attended the rally had their schedules not been in conflict.

Syndicated columnist Drew Pearson claimed in his "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column that Project Prayer had "backstage ties" to the anti-Communist John Birch Society. Pearson noted that the principal author of the prayer decisions, Chief Justice Earl Warren, was a Republican former governor of California and that most mainline denominations endorsed the court's restrictive rulings.

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