Mr. Wallace was 88. He died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of complications from injuries received in a fall, his wife, actress Jane A. Johnston, told the paper.
In addition to appearing as Commando Cody in the film serial "Radar Men from the Moon," Mr. Wallace starred in Broadway's Pipe Dream, the 1955 Rodgers & Hammerstein musical based on John Steinbeck's characters from "Cannery Row" and "Sweet Thursday."
According to the Times, while he was working on the science-fiction film "Forbidden Planet" a casting director heard him singing and introduced him to composer Richard Rodgers. Pipe Dream was Mr. Wallace's Broadway debut. He played a character named Mac.
He later replaced John Raitt in The Pajama Game. Other Broadway credits include Mat in New Girl in Town, opposite Gwen Verdon, for which he was nominated for a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. He also starred as James O'Connor in Dietz and Schwartz's Jennie starring Mary Martin.
In the 1981 Broadway musical, The First, about Jackie Robinson, he played a maitre'd and understudied the part of Branch Rickey. Mr. Wallace played King Arthur in an early national tour of Camelot and the Innkeeper in Man of La Mancha. His credits include many stock and touring productions, as well as appearances in many films ("Submarine Command," "Lifeguard," "Nurse Betty" and "Minority Report") and TV shows ("Hopalong Cassidy," "Four Star Playhouse," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Joan of Arcadia").
Mr. Wallace reportedly met Johnston, his wife of 40 years, when they appeared in The Most Happy Fella at the Long Beach Civic Light Opera in 1963. They later performed together in other musical productions.
Mr. Wallace was born in New York City. He served in the U.S. Navy for more than seven years in the 1930s and '40s. He studied acting and singing in Hollywood following a varied non-theatre career in the service, as a coal miner, as a bartender and (according to an early bio of his) as a tree surgeon.
Instead of flowers, Johnston suggests donations be made to the Actors' Fund of America, 729 7th Ave., 10th Floor, New York, NY 10019.
