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Guy Madison

Guy Madison

Actor · 1922 – 1996 · Pumpkin Center, California, USA

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)

Movies24

  • Movie6.2

    Old Shatterhand

    1964 · 85 votes

  • Movie6.6

    Since You Went Away

    1944 · 56 votes

  • Movie6.1

    The Last Frontier

    1955 · 39 votes

  • Movie5.9

    5 Against the House

    1955 · 43 votes

  • Movie5.9
  • Movie4.4
  • Movie5.3

    Drums in the Deep South

    1951 · 12 votes

  • Movie4.9

    Bullwhip

    1958 · 11 votes

  • Movie9.0
  • Movie5.7

    Sette winchester per un massacro

    Payment in Blood

    1967 · 16 votes

  • Movie6.3

    Das Vermächtnis des Inka

    Legacy of the Incas

    1965 · 12 votes

  • Movie4.3

    Le prigioniere dell'isola del diavolo

    Women of Devil's Island

    1962 · 11 votes

  • Movie6.8

    I misteri della giungla nera

    Kidnapped to Mystery Island

    1964 · 5 votes

  • Movie4.2
  • Movie6.4

    Till the End of Time

    1946 · 20 votes

  • Movie5.2

    The Hard Man

    1957 · 9 votes

  • Movie6.9

    Hilda Crane

    1956 · 12 votes

  • Movie6.4

    Red River

    1988 · 8 votes

  • Movie5.3

    La schiava di Roma

    Slave of Rome

    1961 · 5 votes

  • Movie5.7

    Red Snow

    1952 · 3 votes

  • Movie
  • Movie9.0

    Kolossal - I magnifici Macisti

    Kolossal - The Magnificent Macisti

    1977 · 1 votes

  • Movie5.5

    Il figlio di Django

    Son of Django

    1967 · 11 votes

  • Movie7.0

    Devilman Story

    The Devil's Man

    1967 · 2 votes

Series8

  • TV7.0

    What's My Line?

    1950 · 29 votes

  • TV3.8

    Climax!

    1954 · 12 votes

  • TV6.2
  • TV7.8
  • TV5.3
  • TV6.3

    Crossbow

    1987 · 10 votes

  • TV6.8
  • TV7.2