
Acting
Guy Madison
Born 1922-01-19 · 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)
Acting credits
6.9New ranch owner Frank Madden, half Indian but posing as white, arrives just as an all white jury finds the three white Shipley brothers who lynched three Indians innocent. There is soon trouble between Frank and the Shipleys who are using Frank's land to graze their cattle. When the brother of one of the Indian victims kills a Shipley, Frank is accused and put in jail. The Shipleys then organize a lynch mob and head for the jail.
Reprisal!
1956
5.3Ben is a farm boy who comes into conflict with the Evil Spanish Governor and his two sons. To assist in their oppression the Governor hires a Samurai to teach his son the Japanese Katana sword. To counter this, Ben studies under a blind Franciscan monk to obtain some advanced fighting secrets and develop his warrior senses. Additionally Ben must search for the legendary “Iron Reed”. A mystical stick so strong that grows in the lava of an active Volcano.
The Pacific Connection
1974
6.2Renegades trying to get the army to abandon their fort get the Indians addicted to whiskey, then convince them to attack and drive out the soldiers.
Old Shatterhand
1964
6.1Three trappers become scouts for a cavalry captain who loses his fort to a hated colonel.
The Last Frontier
1955
5.7An Eskimo Army Sergeant is sent to his Arctic tribal village to gather information about a mysterious unmarked black airplane which shadows military planes in northern Alaska and equally-mysterious flashings lighting up the sky from Siberia across the Bering Strait. He soon discovers Soviet espionage at work. Along the way he must also deal with an ice-floe evacuation, an air-ice rescue, a fight with a polar bear and marriage to his fiancee.
Red Snow
1952
4.4A would-be filmmaker and actress shake up the industry with a trick dog who gets discovered by a studio bus driver in the 1920s.
Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood
1976
5.6Wyatt Earp comes to a small town, Rio Bravo, to help the woman saloon owner against the town villain and to save a mine owner from robbery.
Gunmen Of The Rio Grande
1964
5.2A Texas Ranger turns deputy sheriff; a woman wants him to kill her cattle-baron husband.
The Hard Man
1957
5.0The movie is set during World War II in the days just prior to the D-Day invasion. A special parachute unit is sent to destroy a German flame thrower installation on Omaha Beach.
Hell in Normandy
1968
6.4Remake of the 1948 John Wayne feature about a man who rebels against his tyrannical guardian during a crucial cattle drive.
Red River
1988
6.6In 1943, several people enter, re-enter, and exit the difficult life of a Midwestern family whose patriarch has been called up to war, leaving behind his wife and two teen daughters.
Since You Went Away
1944
9.0Two episodes of the TV series "Wild Bill Hickok" edited together and released as a feature.
The Ghost of Crossbone Canyon
1952
6.4Once the commanding officer of a cavalry patrol is killed, the ranking officer who must take command is an army doctor.
The Command
1954
5.9Former war-time Army buddies now students in college decide to rip off a Reno casino.
5 Against the House
1955
7.0A German Captain and an American Captain help each other survive the North African desert during WWII. They meet again a year later during combat operations in France.
The War Devils
1969
6.4Three former marines have a hard time readjusting to civilian life. Perry can't deal with the loss of the use of his legs. William is in trouble with bad debts. And Cliff can't decide what he wants to do with his life, although he gets encouragement from war widow Pat Ruscomb.
Till the End of Time
1946
6.3A made-for-tv movie based on tv series 'Crossbow'.
Crossbow: The Movie
1989
5.3Two old friends find themselves on opposite sides during the Civil War in a desperate battle atop an impregnable mountain.
Drums in the Deep South
1951
5.9A frontier scout leads prisoners on a death mission to save a railroad and rescue two women.
The Charge at Feather River
1953
6.3During the 1800s, Peru's government sends 2 envoys to negotiate peace with the rebellious Incas but a treasure-hunter bandit shoots the Inca ruler and his son, leaving the 2 envoys to take the blame for it.
Legacy of the Incas
1965
6.0In the early stages of the space program, Capt. Jim Hollenbeck undergoes any experiment needed to ensure success in the new Air Force branch -- even though he's not required to be a subject in the tests. Always remaining a constant source of support, his wife, Pat, accepts his unwavering commitment to scientific progress. When Maj. Ward Thomas becomes the new head of the program, Hollenbeck must convince him of the necessity of taking the extra steps.
On the Threshold of Space
1956
8.0"Trouble on the Trail" is two episodes of the "Wild Bill Hickok" television series edited together and released as a feature film by Allied Artists.
Trouble on the Trail
1954
5.4Reverend Miller arrives in Tucson where he wants to build a church. But on the very day of his arrival a gang carries out a raid on the bank and the people of Tucson, who are suspicious of the new reverend because he carries a gun, immediately blame him for the robbery. The sheriff saves him from lynching by putting him in jail. Then he asks the priest to find the gang and the booty; thus Miller becomes the Reverend Colt. His exceptional skill means that he can shoot hats off people's heads and their pistols from their pockets, but he never kills.
Reverend's Colt
1970
5.5The son of Django searches for the murderer of his father and is thereby involved in a war between two factions headed by former acquaintances of his famous parent.
Son of Django
1967