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)
2004
as Cliff Harper in Till the End of Time (archive footage)
1989
as Gerrish
1988
as Bill Meeker, Rancher
1979
as Self
1979
as Lt. Mayo
1978
as Tony Flore
1976
as Star at Screening
1974
as The Old Man
1974
as Robert, Smeralda's ex-husband
1970
as Reverend Miller Colt
1969
as Capt. George Vincent
1969
as Major Carter
1969
as Lofty
1969
as Major Mac Graves
1968
as Capt. Jack Murphy
1968
as Martin Benson
1968
as Prof. Wendland Wond
1967
as Bear Bullock
1967
as Mike Harway
1967
as Father Fleming
1967
as Colonel Thomas Blake
1967
as Rex Miller
1966
as Tex
1965
as Jaguar / Karl Hansen
1965
as Alfonso di Montélimar
1964
as Souyadhana
1964
as Wyatt Earp / Laramie
1964
as Yanez
1964
as Yanez
1964
as Massimo
1964
as Capt. Bradley
1963
as Rodrigo Zeno
1962
as Henri Vallière
1961
as Amalchi
1961
as Marco Valerio
1959
as Brett Murphy
1958
as Steve Daley
1957
as Steve Burden
1957
as Stefan Gross
1956
as Frank Madden
1956
as Jericho - Federal Agent
1956
as Jimmy Ryan
1956
as Russell Burns
1956
as Capt. Jim Hollenbeck
1955
as Captain Glenn Riordan
1955
as Al Mercer
1955
as Wild Bill Hickok
1955
as Wild Bill Hickok
1955
as Wild Bill Hickok
1955
as Wild Bill Hickok
1954
as Wild Bill Hickok
1954
as Wild Bill Hickok
1954
as Wild Bill Hickok
1954
as Wild Bill Hickok
1954
1954
as Capt. Robert MacClaw
1953
as Marshal James Butler 'Wild Bill' Hickok
1953
as Marshal James Butler 'Wild Bill' Hickok
1953
as Wild Bill Hickok
1953
as Wild Bill Hickok
1953
as Miles Archer
1953
as Adam Tenney
1952
as Wild Bill Hickok
1952
as Wild Bill Hickok
1952
as Wild Bill Hickok
1952
as Marshal James Butler 'Wild Bill' Hickok
1952
as John Harpurhey
1952
as Lt. Phil Johnson
1951
1951
as Maj. Will Denning
1951
as Wild Bill Hickok
1950
as Self - Mystery Guest
1949
as Larry Knight
1948
as Eddie Tayloe
1947
as Corporal Phil Vaughn
1946
as Cliff W. Harper
1944
as Sailor Harold E. Smith