David Canary
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David Canary (born August 25, 1938 in Elwood, Indiana) is an American actor.
The road to David Canary's successful career started as a college football player, which won him a scholarship to the University of Cincinnati, where he trained as a singer (the actor has often joked about his distinctive nose, explaining that he broke it on the football field). College performances (most notably as Curly in "Oklahoma") and summer stock shows whet his appetite for the stage, and soon acting became his goal.
After spending one year in the prime time serial, Peyton Place as the husband of Joan Blackman, Canary first came to prominence in 1967 on the Western series Bonanza.
The year 1967 was very good to Canary and his resume. Canary did the classic western movie "Hombre" with Paul Newman, guest starred in a two-part "Gunsmoke" episode, and played a mobster with Jason Robards in the movie, "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre". A contract dispute that year between Leonard Nimoy and the producers of Star Trek forced Herb Solow, Robert H. Justman and Gene Roddenberry to compile a list of candidates for consideration as replacements for Mr. Spock. As revealed in Solow and Justman's book, Star Trek - The Inside Story, Canary was one of the "A List" candidates. When David Dortort ("Bonanza", "High Chaparral", "Ponderosa" creator/ producer) was looking for a gruff Ponderosa foreman with a fancy name, (not unlike the character in Johnny Cash's, "A Boy Named Sue" song of the same era) he saw the actor in "Hombre". Canary's "Candy" Canaday became a big "Bonanza" for the series' fans. Like other TV cowboys of the time, such as Lorne Greene and Peter Breck, Canary recorded a couple of albums.
In 1981, he assumed the role of Steve Frame on the soap opera Another World. However, the effort to revive the Steve/Alice/Rachel triangle was largely unsuccessful and Canary left the show in 1983, after the character of Steve Frame was killed off in a car crash.
That same year, he joined the cast of All My Children in the role of the cunning Adam Chandler. The following year, he was also cast as Adam's meek twin brother, Stuart. He has played the twins since (and as per SAG stipulations, gets paid double for performing two parts).
Additional daytime television roles have included the part of a cult leader on The Doctors and a role on Search for Tomorrow. Other prime time guest appearences include: "Alias Smith and Jones", "Remember WENN", and "Touched By An Angel".
He has won five Daytime Emmy Awards as 'Outstanding Lead Actor', and has been nominated an additional ten times. A baritone, Canary has toured in such musicals as, "Man of La Mancha", "Sweeny Todd" and "Carousel", as well as performing in dramatic pieces such as "The Seagul", and the one man play "Clarence Darrow".
He is the brother of actor John Canary, who also had a role on All My Children.
The brothers are descended from folk figure Calimity Jane- aka Martha Jane Canary ("Bonanza Gold", April 2006).
For awhile in the 1990s, there was a reunion on All My Children. Three stars of the nighttime serial Peyton Place (Canary, Ruth Warrick, Barbara Rush) were all in its cast.
