Editing Jack Webb (section)

===Acting===
Following his discharge, Webb moved to [[San Francisco]], where a wartime shortage of announcers led to a temporary appointment to his own radio show on [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]]'s [[KGO (AM)|KGO Radio]].<ref name=pn>{{cite magazine| last1=Gustafson| first1=Craig| title=Pat Novak ... for Hire| magazine=Nostalgia Digest| date=Spring 2009| volume=35| issue=2| pages=4–9}}</ref> ''The Jack Webb Show'' was a half-hour comedy that had a limited run on ABC radio in 1946. Prior to that, he had a one-man program, ''One Out of Seven,'' on KGO in which he dramatized a news story from the previous week.<ref name=mnf />

By 1949, Webb had abandoned comedy for drama, and starred in ''[[Pat Novak, for Hire]],'' a radio show originating from KFRC about a man who worked as an unlicensed private detective. The program co-starred [[Raymond Burr]]. ''Pat Novak'' was notable for writing that imitated the [[hardboiled]] style of such writers as [[Raymond Chandler]], with lines such as: "She drifted into the room like 98 pounds of warm smoke. Her voice was hot and sticky&nbsp;— like a furnace full of marshmallows." Early in 1949, Webb served as the main antagonist of [[Alan Ladd]]'s protagonist character Dan Holliday in "The Better Man" episode of the radio series ''Box 13'', which aired on January 2, 1949.

Webb's radio shows included ''[[Johnny Madero, Pier 23]];'' ''[[Jeff Regan, Investigator]];'' ''[[The Amazing Mr. Malone|Murder and Mr. Malone]];'' ''[[Pete Kelly's Blues (radio series)|Pete Kelly's Blues]];'' and ''One Out of Seven.'' Webb provided all of the voices on ''One Out of Seven,'' often vigorously attacking racial prejudice.

In 1950, Webb appeared in three films that would become cult classics. In ''[[Sunset Boulevard (film)|Sunset Boulevard]]'', he is the fiancé of [[William Holden]]'s love interest Nancy Olson (his performance is very animated and jovial, unlike his later deadpan style). He played a war veteran in [[Marlon Brando]]'s first feature, ''[[The Men (1950 film)|The Men]]''. And in the [[film noir]] ''[[Dark City (1950 film)|Dark City]]'', he co-starred with [[Harry Morgan]], his future partner on the second ''Dragnet'' series.

Webb's most famous motion-picture role was as the combat-hardened [[United States Marine Corps|Marine Corps]] [[drill instructor]] at [[Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island|Parris Island]] in the 1957 film ''[[The D.I.]]'', with [[Don Dubbins]] as a callow Marine [[private (rank)|private]]. Webb's hard-nosed approach to this role, that of Drill Instructor [[Technical sergeant|Technical Sergeant]] James Moore, would be reflected in much of his later acting, but ''The D.I.'' was a box office failure.

Webb was approached to play the role of Vernon Wormer, dean of Faber College, in ''[[Animal House|National Lampoon's Animal House]],'' but he refused, saying "the movie didn't make any damn sense"; [[John Vernon]] ultimately played the role.<ref>{{cite news| work=[[The New York Times]]| title=Food Fight! 'Fat, Drunk, and Stupid,' by Matty Simmons| first=Peter| last=Keepnews| date=June 1, 2012| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/books/review/fat-drunk-and-stupid-by-matty-simmons.html?_r=0}}</ref>