Before becoming an actor, he was an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California-Berkeley.
Father of actor David Ankrum.
For "Mant," the movie within the movie in Matinee (1993), Kevin McCarthy plays a character named "Gen. Ankrum." This was director Joe Dante's tribute to Ankrum and the roles he played in those fondly remembered sci-fi films of the 1950s.
He was a stalwart, dependable character actor whose career included supporting roles and bit parts (often uncredited) in over 150 (known) feature films. A large portion of his career involved westerns, in some of which he was cast as an Indian. He is best remembered today as one of the most familiar supporting players in low-budget science-fiction films of the 1950s (starting with Lippert's Rocketship X-M (1950)), where he was usually the military officer, police chief or doctor/scientist.
Screen and stage actor.