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Sterling Hayden Filmography
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Sterling Hayden (March 26, 1916 - May 23, 1986) was an American actor. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and film noir
. He is most noted for his appearance as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove (1964). He also played the Irish policeman, Captain McCluskey, who was gunned down by
Al Pacino, in
Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather in 1972.
Born in Upper Montclair, New Jersey, Hayden's parents were George and Frances Walter, who named him
Sterling Relyea Walter. After his father died, he was adopted at the age of nine by James Hayden and renamed Sterling Walter Hayden. As a child, he lived in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and Maine, where he attended Wassookeag School in Dexter, Maine.
Hayden was a genuine adventurer and man of action, not dissimilar from many of his movie parts. He ran away to sea at 17, as a ship's boy, then later was a fisherman on the Grand Banks. After serving as sailor and fireman on larger vessels, he was awarded his first command at 19, and sailed around the world several times.
He became a print model and eventually was signed to a contract with Paramount Studios, who dubbed the 6' 5" (1.96 m) actor
The Most Beautiful Man in the Movies and The Beautiful Blond Viking God. His first film role starred
Madeleine Carroll, with whom he fell in love and married. After only two film roles, however, he left Hollywood to serve as an undercover agent with the with William J. Donovan's COI office and remained after it became the OSS. He also joined the Marines under the name
John Hamilton. His World War 2 service included running guns through German lines to the Yugoslav partisans and parachuting into Croatia. He won the Silver Star and a commendation from Yugoslavia's Marshall Tito.
His admiration for the Communist partisans led to a brief involvement with the Communist Party. According to his
IMDB biography, "As Red Scare deepens in U.S., he cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee, confessing his brief Communist ties. Ever after regretted this action, holding himself in enormous contempt for what he considered 'ratting'."
He professed distaste for film acting, claiming that he did it mainly to pay for his sailing vessels. He defied a court order once and sailed to Tahiti with his children following a divorce. He wrote his autobiography
Wanderer in 1963 and an adventure novel of the tall ships, Voyage: A Novel of 1896 in 1976. Both books were well received. He died of cancer in 1986.
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