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Brandon de Wilde (April 9, 1942-July 6, 1972) was born into a theatrical family in Brooklyn. His father, Frederick A. de Wilde, was a Broadway production stage manager. His mother, Eugenia de Wilde, was a part time Broadway actress. The de Wilde family moved from Brooklyn, New York to Baldwin, Long Island after Brandon was born.
Brandon de Wilde made his much-acclaimed Broadway debut at the age of 9 in
The Member of the Wedding. He was the first child actor to win the Donaldson Award and went on to repeat his role in the film version directed by Fred Zinnemann in 1952.
As the blonde, blue-eyed Joey who idolized the strange gunman in
Shane, he stole the picture and was rewarded with an Oscar nomination the following year. He starred in his own television series,
Jamie, during 1953-54 and made his mark as a screen adolescent during the sixties playing younger brothers in Hud which starred
Paul Newman, and
All Fall Down.
Although he was the only leading cast member not nominated for an Oscar for the 1963 film
Hud, de Wilde got to share Oscar night glory nevertheless when he went on stage to accept the Best Supporting Actor trophy for co-star Melvyn Douglas, who was out of the country visiting Israel at the time.
De Wilde delivered a widely acclaimed performance at the age of twenty-three as Jere Torry, the screen son of John Wayne in the 1965 war film, In Harm's Way
. His last film was Wild In The Sky (1972) in which he played a young rebel that steals a nuclear bomber with the help of two friends. In retrospect, Hud and In Harm's Way stand as his definitive roles as an adult, and Shane as his overall greatest achievement. During his career that spanned the years 1951-1972 he appeared in 6 Broadway plays, 16 films, and 27 television shows.
Brandon de Wilde was critically injured in a car crash in the Denver surburb of Lakeland while en route to appear in the play, Butterflies Are Free. De Wilde had swerved to avoid another vehicle and struck a construction trailer parked on the side of the street. He was pinned in the wreckage of the truck he was driving for some time before finally arriving at Denver University Hospital. He died four hours after the accident on the evening of July 6, 1972. He was thirty years old.
The young actor also had an indirect effect on the music industry. In 1965, de Wilde vacationed in the Bahamas and watched as Paul McCartney of The Beatles wrote the song, "Wait" during the filming of the Beatles movie, "Help." Gram Parsons of The Byrds later wrote the song "In My Hour Of Darkness" about his friend, Brandon de Wilde, after the actor's 1972 death.
De Wilde was originally buried in Hollywood, California. His family later moved his grave to Pinelawn Memorial Park, Farmingdale, New York, in Suffolk County near their Long Island, New York home to be near his mother who died in 1987. De Wilde's father died in 1980.
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