Guy Madison
Known For
Acting
Born
1922-01-19 in Pumpkin Center, California, USA
Died
1996-02-06
Biography
Handsome American leading man Guy Madison stumbled into a film career and became a television star and hero to the Baby Boom generation. As a young man he worked as a telephone lineman, but entered the Coast Guard at the beginning of the Second World War. While on liberty one weekend in Hollywood, he attended a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast and was spotted in the audience by an assistant to Henry Willson, an executive for David O. Selznick. Selznick wanted an unknown sailor to play a small but prominent part in Since You Went Away (1944), and promptly signed Robert Moseley to a contract. Selznick and Willson concocted the screen name Guy Madison (the "guy" girls would like to meet, and Madison from a passing Dolly Madison cake wagon). Madison filmed his one scene on a weekend pass and returned to duty. The film's release brought thousands of fan letters for Madison's lonely, strikingly handsome young sailor, and at war's end he returned to find himself a star-in-the-making. Despite an initial amateurishness to his acting, Madison grew as a performer, studying and working in theatre. He played leads in a series of programmers before being cast as legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickok in the TV series Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1951). He played Hickok on TV and radio for much of the 1950s, and many of the TV episodes were strung together and released as feature films. Madison managed to squeeze in some more adult-oriented roles during his off-time from the series, but much of this work was also in westerns. After the Hickok series ended Madison found work scarce in the U.S. and traveled to Europe, where he became a popular star of Italian westerns and German adventure films. In the 1970s he returned to the U.S., but appeared mainly in cameo roles. Physical ailments limited his work in later years, and he died from emphysema in 1996. His first wife was actress Gail Russell. Date of Birth 19 January 1922, Pumpkin Center, California Date of Death 6 February 1996, Palm Springs, California (emphysema)
Most Known For
What's My Line?
as Self
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
as Jericho - Federal Agent
Climax!
The Ford Television Theatre
as John Harpurhey
The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok
as Wild Bill Hickok
Old Shatterhand
as Capt. Bradley
Crossbow
Red Snow
as Lt. Phil Johnson
The Last Frontier
as Captain Glenn Riordan
General Electric Theater
as Adam Tenney
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
The Command
as Capt. Robert MacClaw
Since You Went Away
as Sailor Harold E. Smith
The Charge at Feather River
as Miles Archer
Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood
as Star at Screening
5 Against the House
as Al Mercer
Legacy of the Incas
as Jaguar / Karl Hansen
Red River
as Bill Meeker, Rancher
Los Angeles Plays Itself
as Cliff Harper in Till the End of Time (archive footage)
When the West Was Fun: A Western Reunion
as Self