Bill Raisch

Carl William Raisch (April 5, 1905 – July 31, 1984)

Carl William Raisch was born on April 5, 1905,[1] in North Bergen, New Jersey.^[2] His parents were German immigrants.^[3]

After graduating high school, Raisch found a job hauling cement in a construction site.^[3] He began lifting weights and also became an amateur boxer.^[3][4] As a dancing partner to a young woman whom he took to socials and dances, he was introduced to Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., who signed him to the Ziegfeld Follies dance troupe.^[3] Raisch performed on stage in his first American production at the New Amsterdam Roof Theater in the late 1920s.^[3] He primarily performed with the dance troupe in New York,^[3] and was also an adagio performer.^[4] He married Adele Smith, a fellow Ziegfeld dancer.^[3]

Acting career

In the beginning of 1945, during his World War II service with the United States Merchant Marine, Raisch's right arm was badly burned in a shipboard fire and had to be amputated at the elbow.^[3][4] Raisch had acted in a few uncredited film roles before the war, but afterwards pursued a film career, moving to Los Angeles in 1946.^[3] Raisch appeared in The War of the Worlds (1953) as "an extra, stand-in, and occasional stuntman", and in Spartacus (1960), playing a character whose arm was hacked off in battle.^[4] For the latter stunt, Kirk Douglas as Spartacus chopped off Raisch's prosthetic limb with a sword.^[5]

Raisch's first memorable film role was as a one-armed character who initiates a barroom brawl with Douglas's cowboy character in