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Ken Lynch

American actor (1910-1990)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ3195059 ↗
Source-derived summary

Kenneth E. Lynch (July 15, 1910 – February 13, 1990) was an American radio, film, and television actor with more than 180 credits to his name. He was generally known for portraying law enforcement officers and detectives. He may have been best known for his starring role as "the Lieutenant" on Dumont detective series The Plainclothesman (1949–1954), on which his face was never seen, and for his co-starring role as Sergeant Grover on McCloud.

Early life

Kenneth Englehart Lynch was born on July 15, 1910, in Albany, New York, the only child of Bertha Dietzel and Charles William Lynch. His father was a native of Woburn, Massachusetts, who started his career as a coffee salesman, and then became a creamery owner in Troy, New York. His mother was from Yonkers, New York, a third generation German-American. His middle name was his maternal grandmother's maiden name.

Career

Lynch made his acting career on radio series. In 1940, on The Bishop and the Gargoyle, he played the Gargoyle, an ex-convict who helped the Bishop solve crimes. From 1942 to 1946, he was the voice of Tank Tanker, the mechanic, who aides the title character in Hop Harrigan.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ken Lynch” is american actor (1910-1990). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Lynch, American and actor, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1910, 1990, 1949, 1954—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1910-07-15. For this dossier, Lynch, American and actor is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american actor (1910-1990)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3195059. VIAF identifies the subject as 160557009. The Library of Congress control number is no2010204004. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1910, 1990, 1949 and 1954.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ken Lynch”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ken Lynch primary sources, Ken Lynch archive and Lynch research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ken Lynch”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ken Lynch” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.