John Dall May 26 1918 January 15 1971 was an American actor Primarily a stage actor he is best remembered today for two film roles the coolminded intellectual killer in Alfred Hitchcocks film Rope and the triggerhappy lead in the 1950 noir Gun Crazy He first came to fame as the young prodigy who comes alive under the tutelage of Bette Davis in The Corn Is Green for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Dall was born John Jenner Thompson in New York City New York the second son of Charles Jenner Thompson a civil engineer and his wife Henry née Worthington Dall died in Hollywood California Sources indicate he died of a heart attack Description above from the Wikipedia article John Dall licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia