Ken Christy was the sort of actor who could make a town feel as though it existed between broadcasts. He was not usually the character whose name appeared in the title. Instead, he became the policeman, neighbor, official or familiar local figure whose presence suggested that life continued after the star walked out of the scene.

Born Robert Kenneth Christy in Greenville, Pennsylvania, in 1894, he served during World War I and later worked onstage. In 1927 he toured with his dancer wife Barbara Bronell in the musical-comedy revue Sensations of 1927, combining her dancing with his comedy. By the early 1930s radio had become the more durable career, and Christy would remain active in the medium for nearly three decades.

His range was broader than the police roles that eventually followed him. Little Orphan Annie used him as Mr. Bonds. He worked in Gang Busters, The Fifth Horseman, Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, The Saint and Suspense, while comedies such as The Alan Young Show and Dennis Day found a different side of the same actor. In Mystery Is My Hobby he played Inspector Danton, another role that took advantage of a voice well suited to authority.

The Great Gildersleeve gave Christy his most enduring radio identity as Summerfield’s Police Chief Gates. The role began with the practical advantage of instant recognizability: the chief of police could arrive in a story already carrying civic authority. But the series did something more interesting with him. Gates gradually became part of Gildersleeve’s social world and one of the Jolly Boys, alongside Peavey, Floyd and other recurring friends. The lawman became a neighbor.

That transition is the key to Christy’s value. Summerfield worked because recurring characters did not exist only when a plot needed them. The barber, druggist, judge, police chief and household staff accumulated relationships. Chief Gates could enforce a rule in one story, sing with the Jolly Boys in another and simply be part of the town’s familiar rhythm in the next. Christy helped turn a functional supporting role into civic texture.

Screen casting noticed the same authority and sometimes overused it. A 1950 newspaper profile joked that nearly all of Christy’s film roles had made him an officer of the law, prompting him to say he would like to be the criminal for once. Films and television kept him working in police, detective and character parts through the 1950s and early 1960s, including an appearance in Sunset Boulevard as one of the homicide detectives at Norma Desmond’s mansion.

Christy died in 1962. His career makes a useful case for the importance of radio’s recurring supporting cast. A fictional town cannot survive on one comic lead. It needs institutions, friendships and people who seem to have jobs and lives when the central character is somewhere else. Christy spent years supplying exactly that kind of permanence.