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- Butch, (real name "Earl"), played in his first tennis tournament at the age of 6. He later was a member of the U.S. Davis Cup teams in 1958, 1959 and 1960. In 1960 he ranked 5th among the world's male tennis players.
In 1963 he helped to found the first men's association for professional tennis players. He retired at age 29 following an injury but continued to work as a tennis tournament promoter and TV sports commentator. He now lives in Miami, Florida, where he remains active in civic and charity organizations. He is married and has three children and five grandchildren.
Non-tennis fans may best remember him for an early 1960s TV commercial in which he appeared, bare-chested, inside a locker-room promoting a brand of hair oil. - Actor
- Director
- Writer
Though not Hispanic, Autry's parents named him "Carlos" after a Louisiana politician admired by his father. The couple soon divorced, however, and Autry's mother took him to be with her family in central California. Carlos Autry now became Carlos Brown. Autry played sports in high school and earned a scholarship to the University of the Pacific where he played quarterback and then tight end on the football team. He attracted attention in the 1975 football draft and wound up playing for the Green Bay Packers. He started three games as quarterback but his efforts were disappointing and coach Bart Starr cut him from the team in 1977. Autry then moved into acting and played small parts in North Dallas Forty (1979) and Popeye (1980) under the name "Carlos Brown". While filming Southern Comfort (1981) in Louisiana in 1981, he again made contact with his father and afterwards decided to change his name back to Autry. He also dropped the "Carlos" and began to use his middle name -- Alan. His acting career peaked when he played a small-town Mississippi policeman in the In the Heat of the Night (1988) TV series which ran from 1988 to 1995. Later, Autry moved into politics and was elected mayor of Fresno, California, in 2000. In 2004, he was re-elected.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Allen Case grew up in Dallas, Texas, and attended Southern Methodist University for two years. After performing for several months on a local TV variety program, he moved to New York and successfully tried out for a singing spot on Arthur Godfrey's morning show. This led to several nightclub engagements and parts in two Broadway-bound musicals, "Reuben Reuben" and "Pleasure Dome", both of which closed out of town. More work followed in nightclubs and on Broadway, as well as an occasional return to the Arthur Godfrey show and an appearance on Jack Paar. A small part in the movie version of Damn Yankees (1958) meant a move to California which led to roles on such TV westerns as Bronco (1958), Wagon Train (1957), Gunsmoke (1955), Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), The Rifleman (1958) and Sugarfoot (1957). Then it was back to New York for the off-Broadway production of "Once Upon a Mattress". Case left that job to co-star with Henry Fonda in the TV series, The Deputy (1959), which ran for two years (76 episodes) on NBC. Though it made no use of his singing ability, this western represented the high point in Allen Case's career.- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Additional Crew
According to information which accompanied his "centerfold" in the February 1974 issue of Playgirl Magazine, Hostetler grew up in Oakland, California, where he got to know some of the notorious Hell's Angels. His employments prior to nude modeling included writing a music column, driving a truck for the Salvation Army, performing jobs for a detective agency, and doing minor stage and film work in San Francisco. Among his interests he cited weight-lifting, motorcycle racing, wrestling, and skiing. At the time he modeled for Playgirl, at age 30, he had relocated to the Los Angeles area in the hope of breaking into the movies, either as an actor or producer.
In his Playgirl photospread, the mustachioed, hairy-chested Hostetler posed with a motorcycle and with a bow-and-arrow. In several photos, Hostetler assumed poses and used props which limited his exposure, but in the actual centerfold -- which opened out into a four-page square -- he directly faced the camera to provide Playgirl with, at that time, one of its boldest and most unapologetic examples of male nudity.- Born Gordon Nance in 1904 on a farm in Pattonsburg, Missouri -- a small town about 60 miles northeast of Kansas City -- the future "Wild Bill Elliott" grew up around horses. His father was a commissioner at the Kansas City Stockyards. and at age 16 Elliott won a first-place ribbon in that city's annual "American Royal Horse and Livestock Show." After a move to California, he appeared in a few productions at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he was spotted by a talent scout. He made his first movie in 1925. A steady stream of movies followed, first silents and then talkies, in which he played too great a variety of roles to be "typed." In many of these movies he was billed as "Gordon Elliott." In 1938, however, Columbia cast him as the lead in its 15-chapter serial, The Great Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1938), and Elliott's identification with westerns began. He even began to adopt the names "Bill" or "Wild Bill." He also became famous for using the line, "I'm a peaceable man ... " (which was inevitably followed by an outburst of violence). Elliott reached his peak of popularity at Columbia when he was teamed with Tex Ritter for a series of films. In 1943 he left Columbia for Republic, where his westerns had somewhat larger budgets. This was followed by a move to Monogram (later Allied Artists) in 1951. He was now back in low-budget B-westerns, the last one appearing in 1954. There followed five other B pictures in which he played a Los Angeles police detective. He filmed "pilots" for two potential TV series, "Marshal of Trail City" and "Parson of the West," but neither of them sold. His film career over, Elliott settled in Las Vegas where he hosted a weekly TV show in which he interviewed guests and showed some of his old movies. He also became a pitchman for a cigarette company. In 1961 his 34-year marriage to Helen Josephine Meyer ended and he took Dolly Moore as his second wife. He died of lung cancer in 1965 and is buried in Las Vegas at Palm Memorial Park.
- Actor
- Stunts
- Producer
Born in St. Anthony, a small town in eastern Idaho, Bradford Harris attended UCLA in the early 1950s, where he played fullback on the football team while studying economics. His studies may have been intended as the groundwork for a career in his family's banking business, but Harris instead drifted into the fringes of Los Angeles' movie industry, and secured employment as a stunt man. In the late 1950s he traveled to Europe as the stunt co-ordinator for a German-Italian co-production. Soon he found himself working as a second-unit director, and that led to a starring role in Goliath Against the Giants (1961). His good looks and muscular build kept him in demand during the era of "sword and sandal" movies, and when this genre began to fade away, he moved into "spaghetti westerns" and a spate of action movies with an emphasis on spy thrillers. In 1967 he married actress Olga Schoberová.- Born to a father who'd once been a professional golfer and a mother who'd once been a professional tennis player, Buzzini used his good looks and athletic build to become one of the most successful male models of the mid-1980s. Aside from posing for many "International Male" catalogs, he also appeared in ads for Diet Coke, Kool cigarettes, Burberry trench coats, and Edge shaving cream. His greatest exposure probably came in two separate issues of Playgirl magazine. At age 22, in its twelfth anniversary issue of June 1985, Buzzini spread his naked form across Playgirl's two-page centerfold. Then, in the January 1986 issue, 23-year-old Buzzini appeared in another photospread which hailed him as Playgirl's "Man of the Year." Another Buzzini interest is motorbike racing, and he's also made a few forays into acting.
- Stunts
- Actor
According to the 1983 book on male models titled "Not Just Another Pretty Face," Buzzy was born in Indiana but moved with his family to Hawaii when he was 9 years old. He quickly took to surfing and in 1978 won the World Cup surfing title. A photographer spotted his picture in a surfing magazine and invited him to come to New York for a Vogue Magazine fashion shoot. Soon Ralph Lauren signed him to an exclusive contract to model Lauren's clothes but Buzzy continued to travel the world to follow his interest in surfing.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Chuck Connors was born Kevin Joseph Connors in Brooklyn, New York, to Marcella (nee Lundrigan; died 1971) and Alban Francis "Allan" Connors (died 1966), Roman Catholic immigrants of Irish descent from the Dominion of Newfoundland (now part of Canada). Chuck and his two-years-younger sister, Gloria, grew up in a working-class section of the west side of Brooklyn, where their father worked the local docks as a longshoreman. He served as an altar boy at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica School and attended school there. He later became a member of the Bay Ridge Boys' Club and playing sandlot ball as a member of the Bay Ridge Celtics.
A life-long Dodgers' fan, he always dreamed of a baseball career with his favorite team. His natural athletic prowess earned him a scholarship to Adelphi Academy, a private high school, and then to Seton Hall, a Catholic college in South Orange, New Jersey. Leaving Seton Hall after two years, on October 20, 1942, aged 21, he joined the army, listing his occupation as a ski instructor. After enlistment in the infantry at Fort Knox, he later served mostly as a tank-warfare instructor at Camp Campbell, Kentucky, and then finally at West Point. Following his discharge early in 1946, he resumed his athletic pursuits. He played center for the Boston Celtics in the 1946-47 season but left early for spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Baseball had always been Connors' first love, and for the next several years he knocked about the minor leagues in such places as Rochester (NY), Norfolk (VA), Newark (NJ), Newport News (VA), Mobile (AL) and Montreal, Canada (while in Montreal he met Elizabeth Riddell, whom he married in October 1948. They had four sons during their 13-year marriage). He finally reached his goal, playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, in May 1949, but after just five weeks and one at-bat, he returned to Montreal. After a brief stint with the Chicago Cubs in 1951, during which he hit two home runs, Connors wound up with the Cubs' Triple-A farm team, the L.A. Angels, in 1952.
A baseball fan who was also a casting director for MGM spotted Connors and recommended him for a part in the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn comedy Pat and Mike (1952). Originally cast to play a prizefighter, but that role went instead to Aldo Ray. Connors was cast as a captain in the state police. He now abandoned his athletic hopes and devoted full time to his acting career, which often emphasized his muscular 6'6" physique.
During the next several years Connors made 20 movies, culminating in a key role in William Wyler's 1958 western The Big Country (1958). Also appearing in many television series, he finally hit the big time in 1958 with The Rifleman (1958), which began its highly successful five-year run on ABC. Other television series followed, as did a number of movies which, though mostly minor, allowed Connors to display his range as both a stalwart "good guy" and a menacing "heavy".
Connors died at age 71 of lung cancer and pneumonia on November 10, 1992 in Los Angeles, California. He is buried in San Fernando Mission Cemetery with his tombstone carrying a photo of Connors as Lucas McCain in "The Rifleman" as well as logos from the three professional sports teams he played for: the Dodgers, Cubs and Celtics.- Prolific mystery writer Cornell Woolrich was born in New York City, but his parents separated when he was young and he spent much of his childhood in Latin America with his father. Then he was sent back to New York to live with his rich, domineering mother, Claire. He attended Columbia University where he wrote his first novel, a Jazz Age piece published in 1926 titled "Cover Charge". Another book, "Children of the Ritz", followed in 1927. Hollywood beckoned but his time there as an (uncredited) screenwriter proved to be unhappy. A disastrous marriage to a producer's daughter failed quickly and he headed back to New York -- and Claire. He found his niche writing suspense stories for magazines such as "Argosy", "Black Mask" and "Thrilling Mystery". Sales were made to Hollywood, his reputation grew, and his bank account increased. Some called him "the Poe of the 20th century". Then his mother sank into a lengthy illness and his output fell as he devoted more and more of his time to her care. By the time she died in 1957, he was "burned out". From then until his death in 1968, he lived a lonely life marked by alcoholism and poor health (he delayed visiting a doctor when his leg started bothering him; he eventually lost it to gangrene). When he died his funeral went unattended.
He bequeathed money to Columbia to set up a creative writing course which was not named after him but after who else?-Claire. - Dan played both football and baseball at Bellarmine College Prep and, in 1968, he was drafted by the New York Mets who saw him as a potential major-league shortstop. He decided, however, to attend the nearby University of Santa Clara where he majored in political science and continued to play sports. His interest in baseball soon fell to his skill at football and he wound up playing in the East-West Shrine Game and the Senior Bowl. These appearances prompted the Houston Oilers to make him their #1 pick in the 1971 draft. Dan quarterbacked for the Oilers for several years before moving on to the Oakland Raiders, the L.A. Rams and the Philadelphia Eagles. During these years, he acquired the image as a fast-living "playboy", an image enhanced by his ten-year marriage (1972-1982) to buxom British actress, June Wilkinson. Dan also tried his hand at acting. In 1979's Killer Fish (1979), he co-starred with 'Lee Majors', Karen Black, James Franciscus, Margaux Hemingway and Gary Collins, but his part was small and most critics agreed that his primary talent as a actor was looking good with his shirt off. More than his shirt came off when he posed for a December 1980 photo-spread in "Playgirl" which showed him stripping and showering. Dan now lives in the Houston area where he's hosted a sports show on local TV and continues to indulge his passion for race-cars.
- Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Richard Simmons later moved to Minneapolis where he attended West High School and then the University of Minnesota. While at university he competed in fencing and swimming and also acted in a few theater productions. He left the Twin Cities in the 1930s and spent several years traveling the world, working on freighters and tankers.
Eventually he settled in Los Angeles where, according to one story, Louis B. Mayer saw him breaking in an Arabian horse and immediately offered him a screen test. Simmons played a number of minor parts in MGM movies but finally achieved a degree of fame in the mid-1950s when he starred in the half-hour syndicated TV series, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon (1955). With his horse Rex, and his husky King, Preston brought law-and-order into the 1890s Gold Rush as a member of the Northwest Mounted Police. Each episode ended with Preston hugging his dog and saying: "Well, King, it looks like this case is closed." - Writer
- Director
- Actor
Born in Carbondale, Illinois, (but raised in Oklahoma), Dirk first came to public attention when he appeared at age 27, in a photo-spread in Playgirl Magazine's "Holiday 1990" issue. This handsome, hairy-chested blond proved unusually popular with readers and when given a chance to select 1992's "Man of the Year", these readers picked Dirk from among a field of twelve candidates. He subsequently posed for another photo-spread in Playgirl's February 1992 issue. This exposure led to a large number of personal appearances, press interviews, and guest spots on TV talk shows. Dirk used some of these experiences as the basis for a theatrical film titled Man of the Year (1995) which was released in 1995. Dirk played himself in this "mockumentray" which told, in generally light-hearted fashion, of the tribulations a gay man might face when he's presented as the female's ideal of a sex symbol. The movie received good reviews and played in all the major markets and proved popular at gay film festivals. Dirk followed this with another movie he wrote and directed in 2001 titled _Circuit (2001/I)_ which also dealt with a gay man's life. Circuit won several film festival awards, played world wide theatrically, and is one of the best selling gay DVD titles on record.
Shafer worked for many years as a fitness trainer and Pilates instructor, releasing Swapoutworkout, a fitness instructional video, in 2012. Also in 2012 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his layout, Shafer returned to the pages of Playgirl for another spread.
Shafer was found dead in his car near his home in West Hollywood, California on March 5, 2015. The cause of death was not immediately apparent. An autopsy determined that death was the result of overdose on cocaine and methamphetamine, with hypertension being a possible contributing factor.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Edd Byrnes was born Edward Byrne Breitenberger on July 30, 1932 in New York City, the son of Mary (Byrne) and Augustus "Gus" Breitenberger. Edd shared an impoverished and unhappy childhood with brother Vincent and sister Jo-Ann. Their mother worked hard at various jobs to keep the family together because her alcoholic husband was often absent from the scene.
When Edd was fifteen, his father was found dead in a basement. Edd then dropped his surname (Breitenberger) in favor of "Byrnes", based on the name of his maternal grandfather, Edward Byrne, a New York City fireman. He found escape from family problems at the movies and at the gym, where he developed an athletic body. At age 17 he was approached by a man who offered to take free "physique" photos of him. According to his 1996 autobiography, "Kookie No More", this led to a few years of "hustling" older, well-to-do men, despite the fact that Edd was heterosexual. One of these men acted as Edd's mentor, introducing him to fashion and culture and encouraging his hopes for an acting career.
After doing some summer-stock work and a few bit parts on TV, Edd drove to California in 1955, arriving in Los Angeles on the day James Dean died in a car crash. He managed to get a few minor parts in films and then won a role in a new TV series, 77 Sunset Strip (1958), which premiered in September 1958. Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Roger Smith starred as private eyes but Edd, playing a hip-talking parking-lot attendant named "Kookie", won the most attention. Viewers quoted his dialog, ("Baby, you're the ginchiest!"), and young males imitated the way he wielded his ever-present comb. His fan mail soon reached an astonishing 15,000 letters a week and his single with Connie Stevens, "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb", became a top-5 hit. Edd chafed, however, at the restrictions in his Warner Brothers contract, which forced him to turn down roles in Ocean's Eleven (1960), North to Alaska (1960) and Rio Bravo (1959).
He walked off the "77 Sunset Strip" set and in the ensuing months began to drink heavily and visit a psychiatrist, who administered drugs to him. His contract dispute was eventually settled, though not much to his advantage, and when he returned to "77 Sunset Strip" his role was upgraded from "sidekick" to "partner" and he wore a suit and tie. Audience reaction was not good, ratings dropped, and the show was canceled. The hip-talking, hair-combing image clung to him, however, and Edd felt he lost the lead in PT 109 (1963) because President John F. Kennedy didn't want to be played by "Kookie". A few more movies and TV appearances followed, but his career had passed its peak before he turned 30.
In 1962, he married long-time girlfriend Asa Maynor. Their son, Logan, was born on September 13, 1965. Edd and Asa's marriage ended in divorce in 1971, partially due to his substance abuse. In 1982, he succeeded in going "clean and sober" but never remarried. Byrnes died on January 8, 2020, aged 87, in Santa Monica, California.- Writer
- Actor
- Director
Born Luigi Montefiori in 1942 near Genoa, Italy, the future actor provided artwork for various advertising agencies in Genoa before moving to Rome in 1966. Though he intended to further his art career, he became involved with a crowd of film people who urged him to put his good looks to advantage in the movies. Parts in Italian westerns soon followed, usually under the pseudonym "George Eastman". (He once reportedly missed out on a role in a Franco Nero western because his height made Franco Nero look too short.) Never quite "typed", the actor soon moved into other film genres playing good guys, bad guys, and good-bad guys. These parts often exploited his athletic physique by having him remove his shirt, perhaps most memorably in Lina Wertmüller's _Belle Starr (1968) where he suffered through a memorable torture scene involving a boot-spur. However, a few parts in English-language films, such as Charlton Heston's _Call of the Wild, The (1972)_ failed to significantly broaden his appeal. He also began to write or collaborate on scripts and in 1989 he directed his first movie: _DNA Formula Letale (1989)_. Details on his private life are sketchy but some sources indicate that he's the father of a daughter.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Born in Pasadena, California, George Nader became interested in acting while still in school and appeared in several productions at the Pasadena Playhouse. This led to several small parts in movies before earning the lead role in the ridiculous 3-D thriller Robot Monster (1953). The movie was bad but profitable, and Nader soon had a contract with Universal Pictures. Unfortunately, the studio already had on its roster such good-looking and athletic actors as Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis and Jeff Chandler, so Nader often found himself being cast in their leftovers, usually playing parts that emphasized his "beefcake" appeal. (At 6' 1" and 180 pounds, Nader had the kind of physique fan magazines drooled over and unlike many of his colleagues, he frequently appeared with his chest hair intact.) However, he did enjoy a few good years in the mid-1950s, turning in a commendable performance in Away All Boats (1956) before his career began to decline. He tried his hand at three TV series and then relocated to Europe, where he enjoyed a modest revival in the late 1960s starring as "Jerry Cotton" in a series of West German films.- As a child, Williams acted in summer stock productions. After graduation from high school he joined the Air Force for a four-year stint. Then, returning to New York, he took acting classes with Lee Strasberg. A few minor Broadway roles followed as did parts on some live TV dramas. One of these parts caught the eye of a talent agent and Williams signed with Universal in 1956. Universal put him into several supporting roles -- most notably as the gas-station stud in Written on the Wind (1956) -- but the high point of his career came when he played the title role in The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). Director Jack Arnold said that Williams gave an Oscar-worthy performance because, in many special-effects scenes, he could only imagine his surroundings and his fellow actors. In 1959, Williams moved over to Warner Brothers which cast him in the Hawaiian Eye (1959) TV series. After this, Williams' career faded. His last appearance may have been on a Family Feud (1976) episode in 1983 which featured other Hawaiian Eye (1959) alumni. A lifelong bachelor, Williams died in 1985.
- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Director
Born in Illinois in 1904, the only child of Jennie and Frank Toland, Gregg and his mother moved to California several years after his parents divorced in 1910. Through Jennie's work as a housekeeper for several people in the movie business, Gregg may had gotten a $12-a-week job at age 15 as an office boy at William Fox Studios. Soon he was making $18 a week as an assistant cameraman. When sound came to movies in 1927, the audible whir of movie cameras became a problem, requiring the cumbersome use of soundproof booths. Toland helped devise a tool which silenced the camera's noise and which allowed the camera to move about more freely. In 1931, Toland received his first solo credit for the Eddie Cantor comedy, "Palmy Days." In 1939 he earned his first Oscar for his work on William Wyler's "Wuthering Heights." In the following year he sought out Orson Welles who then hired him to photograph "Citizen Kane." (Toland was said to have protected the inexperienced Welles from potential embarrassment by conferring with him in private about technical matters rather than bringing these up in front of the assembled cast and crew.) For "Kane" Toland used a method which became known as "deep focus" because it showed background objects as clearly as foreground objects. (Film theorist Andre Bazin said that Toland brought democracy to film-making by allowing viewers to discover what was interesting to them in a scene rather than having this choice dictated by the director.) Toland quickly became the highest paid cinematographer in the business, earning as much as $200,000 over a three year period. He also became perhaps the first cinematographer to receive prominent billing in the opening credits, rather than being relegated to a card containing seven or more other names. Tragically, Toland's career was cut short in 1948 by his untimely death at age 44. Toland had a daughter, Lothian, by his second wife and two sons, Gregg jr. and Timothy, by his third. Lothian became the wife of comic Red Skelton.- A native New Yorker, James Luisi attended St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights on a basketball scholarship. He served in the Army during the Korean War. He then played one season (1953-54) with the Baltimore Bullets in the National Basketball Association. His acting career began on the stage with early parts coming in the Broadway musicals "Sweet Charity" and "Zorba". His early movies were minor, though his "beefcake" appeal was evident in 1973's I Escaped from Devil's Island (1973) in which he rarely wore a shirt. Most of his later work was on TV. In 1976 he shared a "best actor" daytime Emmy for playing George Washington in a daytime drama special titled First Ladies Diaries: Martha Washington (1975). Also in 1976 he started his four-season role as Jim Rockford's (James Garner) nemesis Lt. Chapman in The Rockford Files (1974). In 1983 he played the cop in charge of some street-gang-members-turned-undercover-agents in the short-lived series The Renegades (1983), which provided a boost for Patrick Swayze, who played one of the gang members. Along with guest spots on numerous TV shows, Luisi also appeared in the soap operas Days of Our Lives (1965) and Another World (1964).
In the 1990s he returned to acting in and directing stage work in the Los Angeles area. Stricken with cancer he passed away on 7 June 2002 and is survived by his wife of 41 years, the former Georgia Phillips. - Writer
- Actor
The son of a minister, de Hartog ran away to sea twice in his boyhood. Later, after attending the Netherlands Naval College, he went back to sea as a sailor. During this time he wrote detective stories and then a popular novel about tugboat crews titled "Holland's Glory". During the Nazi occupation he found sanctuary in a house in Amsterdam. After the war he moved to England, began to write in English, and turned out a number of novels, some of which were filmed: The Spiral Road (1962) with Rock Hudson, "The Inspector" with Stephen Boyd (released under the title Lisa (1962)), and "Stella" with William Holden and Sophia Loren (released as The Key (1958)).
In 1951 his play, "The Fourposter", became a major Broadway success starring Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy. A movie version followed with Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer and then Broadway musicalized it as "I Do! I Do!" with Robert Preston and Mary Martin. De Hartog was briefly married as a young man in Holland. In England, in 1946, he married Angela Priestley, daughter of J.B. Priestley. In 1961 he married Marjorie Mein (who had earlier served as production secretary to Michael Powell on The Red Shoes) with whom he lived in Houston, Texas, during his later years. Two children from the first marriage, Sylvia and Arnold, still live in the Netherlands. Two children from the second marriage, Catherine and Nicholas, still live in England. With his third wife de Hartog adopted two Korean girls, Eva Kim and Julia Kim, who live in America.- Jim's mother relocated from New York to California following the death of Jim's adoptive father. Jim was nine years old. His mother subsequently remarried and moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, where Jim attended high school. He excelled in football, baseball, and basketball. Though offered a basketball scholarship at UCLA, he signed with the Baltimore Orioles at age 18 and received a $50,000 signing bonus. During his pitching career for the Orioles (1965-1984) he won 268 games and became the only pitcher to win a World Series game in each of three different decades. He was voted the Cy Young Award three times. In 1990 he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot. Despite all this, Jim's greatest fame may have come when, beginning in the late 1970s, he appeared in a series of ads for Jockey Underwear modeling various styles of briefs, including the "bikini" variety. At the time, these ads were considered "daring" because of their blatant display of "male beefcake." They certainly added a new meaning to the term "pitcher's mound" and they helped to turn Jim into an overnight sex symbol.
- Born in South London on Sept 5, 1935, to Ernest and Rose Briggs, Johnny had a younger sister, Barbara, who died in 1955 at age 15. As a boy, he sang soprano in a church choir and during World War II he was evacuated to the safety of the English countryside. Back in London he won a scholarship, at age 12, to the Italia Conti Stage Academy. Among his classmates were Nanette Newman and Anthony Newley. A scattering of parts followed in movies, stage plays and TV shows. In 1953 Johnny began two years of service in Germany with the Royal Tank Regiment. He then resumed his acting career.
In 1961 he married Caroline Sinclair and they had two children, Mark and Karen, before divorcing in 1975. In 1975 Johnny married schoolteacher Christine Allsop and they've had four children: Jennifer, Michael, Stephanie, and Anthony. British audiences know him best as 'Mike Baldwin', the part he played on the Coronation Street (1960) TV series for almost 30 years beginning in 1976. American audiences are more likely to remember him as the young sailor who was stripped to the waist and flogged in 1962's Damn the Defiant! (1962)! Though working less frequently these days, Johnny remains an avid golfer. - His father was a physician in Rochester, New York, who died when Wilcox was 16. He attended the University of Southern California but soon dropped out. A talent scout spotted him in a summer-stock production of "The Petrified Forest" and a series of "B" movies followed. In 1937 he married Florence Rice, daughter of sportswriter Grantland Rice. They divorced two years later. Wilcox left Hollywood at the start of World War II to serve in the Army, first as a private and eventually as a captain. In 1950 he married the twice-divorced Diana Barrymore who chronicled their bouts with alcoholism in her 1957 autobiography, "Too Much, Too Soon." (She dedicated the book to him.) Wilcox was making a train trip back to his hometown of Rochester when he was found dead in his berth.
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
His acting career began in the 1960s with appearances in a number of British television series as well as scattered roles in feature films. Then he played the male lead in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970) and also starred in The Love Factor (1969) as a spoof James Bond. Hawdon also played a number of roles on the London stage and in provincial companies, playing everything from Hamlet to Henry V and Henry Higgins. In the 1980s he founded the Bath Fringe Festival and then became director of the Theatre Royal Bath, the UK's premier touring theatre. Writing initially supplemented and then dominated his acting as he turned out a number of plays including "The Mating Game", "Don't Dress for Dinner" and "God and Stephen Hawking". In 1984 Hutchinsons published his first novel, "A Rustle in the Grass", about war between colonies of ants, which sold 60,000 copies. In 2002 his second novel, "The Journey" was published, and in 2013, "Survival Of The Fittest" (a novel about Charles Darwin). All can be found on his website.
Robin Hawdon's plays have been seen in over forty countries and thirty different languages, and many are published. Also a novelist. His first novel, an epic Young Adult story, 'A Rustle In The Grass', is now republished after it has attracted a list of 5 star Amazon reviews. His latest novel, 'Survival Of The Fittest', is also gaining 5 star reviews.
Robin Hawdon stopped acting in 1980 to concentrate on his writing career. His plays, especially the comedies, are among the most frequently produced around the world. His name is perhaps better known abroad than in his native Great Britain. At any one moment there are likely to be at least twenty productions of various titles running in various countries. Major productions in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, Berlin, Bonn, Warsaw, Johannesburg, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Russia, Italy, etc.- Born in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania--a small town just east of Pittsburgh--Ron Harper became valedictorian of his senior class and won an academic scholarship to Princeton University, where he supplemented his academic studies by appearing in a number of plays and musical comedies. He earned a fellowship to study law at Harvard, but the "acting bug" lured him instead to New York, where he studied with 'Lee Strasberg'. Next came a stint in the US Navy (mostly spent in Panama), followed by a return to New York. After several disappointments. he earned a job as Paul Newman's understudy in "Sweet Bird of Youth". Hollywood soon beckoned, and Harper appeared in a succession of TV series: 87th Precinct (1961), The Jean Arthur Show (1966), Wendy and Me (1964), Garrison's Gorillas (1967) and Planet of the Apes (1974).
Following "Apes", he had roles in several soap-operas and guest-starred on various TV shows. He now lives in California. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Though born in New York City, Ty was raised in Texas and, after military service during the Korean War, took some classes at Texas A&M. He then moved west to California and won some minor roles in B movies. When TV's Clint Walker insisted on improvements in his Cheyenne (1955) contract, Warner Brothers countered by bringing in Ty as a possible replacement. Soon, Ty had his own show, Bronco (1958), which ran from 1958 to 1962. From here, he moved into a brief flurry of film activity: Merrill's Marauders (1962) and The Chapman Report (1962) in 1962, PT 109 (1963), Wall of Noise (1963), and Palm Springs Weekend (1963) in 1963, and Battle of the Bulge (1965) in 1966. After this, Ty's career drifted off into a series of forgettable movies made in Europe and, later, he worked in Prescott, Arizona, as an evangelistic preacher. Though often dismissed as just a hunk of "beefcake" -- he did a lot of bare-chest scenes -- Ty displayed a flair for light comedy in The Chapman Report (1962) and showed dramatic potential in the underrated Wall of Noise (1963).