On television, Darren McGavin portrayed the title character in Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, and starred in Riverboat and Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
34 Facts About Darren McGavin
2.
Darren McGavin's parents divorced when he was 11 years old, and custody was given to his father, who was employed as a traveling salesman for a chemical company.
3.
Darren McGavin eventually ran away from the farm, and lived with a Native American family along the Nisqually River.
4.
Darren McGavin's father was notified that he had fled, and McGavin temporarily dodged police and welfare workers before his father enrolled him in a Catholic boarding school.
5.
Around age 16, McGavin left the boarding school and temporarily lived as a runaway under the wharf in San Francisco, before moving in with his mother and stepfather, William L Maddison, at their ranch in Southern California.
6.
Darren McGavin later studied theatre at the HB Studio in New York City.
7.
Darren McGavin was rejected for military service during World War II because of bad knees.
8.
Darren McGavin subsequently dropped out of college, and found work as a painter at Columbia Pictures movie studios in 1945.
9.
Darren McGavin began appearing on Broadway in 1954, in productions of My Three Angels and The Rainmaker opposite Geraldine Page.
10.
Darren McGavin returned to Hollywood in the early 1950s and appeared in the short film A Word to the Wives with Marsha Hunt, and had his first starring roles in the feature films Summertime, opposite Katharine Hepburn, and The Man with the Golden Arm.
11.
Also in 1955, Darren McGavin appeared twice in the anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, first in an episode titled "Triggers in Leash" and later in an episode titled "The Cheney Vase", as a scheming caretaker and aspiring art thief, opposite Carolyn Jones, Patricia Collinge, and Ruta Lee.
12.
Darren McGavin later appeared in an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour titled "A Matter of Murder" in 1964.
13.
Darren McGavin was cast as Captain Grey Holden opposite Burt Reynolds in the Western series Riverboat, which aired from 1959 until 1961; Reynolds was replaced by Noah Beery Jr.
14.
When Martin and Lewis broke up, Darren McGavin played the role originally earmarked for Dean Martin in The Delicate Delinquent, Jerry Lewis's first solo film.
15.
Darren McGavin was known for his role as Sam Parkhill in the miniseries adaptation of The Martian Chronicles.
16.
Darren McGavin appeared as a fill-in regular in The Name of the Game in an episode entitled "Goodbye Harry" and was featured as a reporter in one of the Gene Barry segments.
17.
Darren McGavin returned to theater in 1964, starring in a regional production of A Thousand Clowns, in which his teenaged son, York, appeared.
18.
In 1964 Darren McGavin appeared as Mark Troxel on The Virginian in the episode "The Intruders".
19.
Darren McGavin was cast as the lead in the supernatural-themed television film The Night Stalker.
20.
Darren McGavin would write his ensuing stories in a sensational, tabloid style, which advised readers that the true story was being withheld from them.
21.
Darren McGavin reportedly entered into a verbal agreement with Sid Sheinberg to produce The Night Stalker as a TV series as a co-production between Universal and Darren McGavin's Taurean Productions.
22.
Early promises were never fulfilled, and Darren McGavin expressed concern over script quality and lack of network commitment toward promoting the show.
23.
Darren McGavin's concerns appeared justified, as the series drifted into camp humor and the production values declined in later episodes.
24.
In 1973, prior to the production of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Darren McGavin made his directorial debut with the film Happy Mother's Day, Love George, a mystery film starring Cloris Leachman, Ron Howard, and Bobby Darin.
25.
In 1973, Darren McGavin played Oliver Spencer in the original pilot film The Six Million Dollar Man.
26.
Darren McGavin starred in the comedy Zero to Sixty, produced by his wife, Kathie Browne, in which he portrayed a divorced man attempting to sort out his life.
27.
Darren McGavin appeared in 1984's The Natural as a shady gambler, and appeared on a Christmas episode of Millennium, playing the long-estranged father of Frank Black.
28.
In 1986, he took a part in John Irvin's Raw Deal, alongside then-rising star Arnold Schwarzenegger; Darren McGavin plays a long time FBI officer who enlists a former colleague to help him unmask a mole within the Bureau working for a Chicago mob family.
29.
Darren McGavin won a CableACE Award and received a 1990 Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Star in a Comedy Series on Murphy Brown, in which he played Murphy's father, Bill.
30.
Darren McGavin co-starred with Adam Sandler in Billy Madison, playing the titular character's hotel-magnate father.
31.
In 1998, Darren McGavin was asked to play the role of Arthur Dales in The X-Files, and appeared in two episodes between then and 1999.
32.
Darren McGavin later married Melanie York in March 1944; their marriage ended in divorce in 1969, and produced four children.
33.
In 1960, Darren McGavin purchased an Alexander home in the Racquet Club Estates neighborhood of Palm Springs, California.
34.
Darren McGavin died on February 25,2006, of cardiovascular disease in a Los Angeles hospital, aged 83.