Dane Clark (born Bernhardt Zanvilevitz; February 26, 1912 – September 11, 1998) was an American character actor who was known for playing, as he labeled himself, "Joe Average.

"[1] Clark was born Bernhardt Zanvilevitz (later Bernard Zanville), the son of Samuel,[2] a sporting goods store owner, and his wife Rose.

During the Great Depression, he worked as a professional boxer, minor league baseball player, construction worker, and model.

[6] He progressed from small Broadway parts to larger ones, eventually taking over the role of George from Wallace Ford in the 1937 production of Of Mice and Men.

[1] His other Broadway credits include Mike Downstairs (1968), A Thousand Clowns (1962), Fragile Fox (1954), The Number (1951), Dead End (1935), Waiting for Lefty (1935), Till the Day I Die (1935), and Panic (1935).

He worked alongside some of his era's biggest stars, often in war movies such as Action in the North Atlantic (1943), his breakthrough part, opposite Humphrey Bogart.

"[8] He was third billed in Destination Tokyo (1943) beneath Cary Grant and John Garfield, and in The Very Thought of You (1944) with Dennis Morgan and Eleanor Parker.

[10] In that same year he had a notable part in an Army Airforce training film, Tail Gunner, which starred actors Ronald Reagan, Burgess Meredith as the main character, Tom Neal and Jonathan Hale.

Clark supported Bette Davis and Glenn Ford in A Stolen Life (1946) and was promoted to top billing for Her Kind of Man (1946), a crime film.

That same year he appeared as Barton Ellis on The Men From Shiloh, rebranded name of the long running TV Western series The Virginian in the episode titled "The Mysterious Mrs.

He also played Lieutenant Tragg in the short-lived revival of the Perry Mason television series in 1973, and appeared in the 1976 miniseries Once an Eagle.