Jesse Kenneth Tobey (March 23, 1917 – December 22, 2002) was an American actor active from the early 1940s into the 1990s, with over 200 credits in film, theatre, and television. He is best known for his role as a captain who takes charge of an Arctic military base when it is attacked by a plant-based alien in The Thing from Another World (1951), and a starring role in the 1957-1960 Desilu Productions TV series Whirlybirds.

Tobey was born in 1917 in Oakland, California. Following his graduation from high school in 1935, he entered the University of California, Berkeley, with intentions to pursue a career in law, until he began to dabble in acting at the school's theater. His stage experience there led to a drama scholarship, a year-and-a-half of study at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse, where his classmates included fellow actors Gregory Peck, Eli Wallach, and Tony Randall.

During World War II, Tobey joined the United States Army Air Forces, serving in the Pacific as a rear gunner aboard a B-25 bomber.

Throughout the 1940s, with the exception of his time in military service, Tobey acted on Broadway and in summer stock.

After appearing in a 1943 film short, The Man of the Ferry, he made his Hollywood film debut in the 1947 Hopalong Cassidy Western Dangerous Venture. He then went on to appear in scores of features and on numerous television series. In the 1949 film Twelve O' Clock High, he is the negligent airbase sentry who is dressed down by General Frank Savage (played by Gregory Peck). That same year, Tobey performed in a brief comedy bit in another film, I Was a Male War Bride starring Cary Grant. His performance in that minor part caught the attention of director Howard Hawks, who promised to use the 32-year-old actor in something more substantial.

In 1951, Tobey was cast in Howard Hawks' production The Thing from Another World. In this classic sci-fi film he portrays Captain Patrick Hendry, a United States Air Force pilot, who at the North Pole leads a scientific outpost's dogged defense against an alien portrayed by James Arness, later the star of the television series Gunsmoke. Tobey's performance in Hawks' film garnered the actor other parts in science-fiction movies in the 1950s, usually reprising his role as a military officer, such as in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955).

In 1957, Tobey portrayed a sheriff in The Vampire (a film that some sources today often confuse with the 1935 production Mark of the Vampire). That year, he also appeared in a more prestigious film, serving as a featured supporting character with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, the co-stars of John Ford's The Wings of Eagles. In that film, Tobey, with his naturally red hair on display in vibrant Metrocolor, portrays a highly competitive United States Army Air Service officer. In one memorable scene, he has the distinction of shoving a piece of gooey cake into John Wayne's face, whose character is a rival United States Navy aviation officer. Not surprisingly, a room-wrecking brawl ensues.

Tobey's work over the next several decades was increasingly involved in television productions. He did, though, continue to perform in a range of feature films, such as Stark Fear, Marlowe starring James Garner as Raymond Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe, Billy Jack starring Tom Laughlin, Walking Tall starring Joe Don Baker, The Howling, the war movie MacArthur (in which he portrays Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey), Airplane!, Gremlins, Big Top Pee-wee starring Paul Reubens, and Gremlins 2: The New Batch.