1. Sterling Hayden often professed a distaste for acting and used his earnings to finance his numerous voyages as a sailor.
43 Facts About Sterling Hayden
1. 2.
Sterling Hayden was a decorated Marine Corps officer and an Office of Strategic Services' agent during World War II.
3.
Sterling Hayden dropped out of high school at the age of 16 and took a job as mate on a schooner.
4.
Sterling Hayden skippered a trading schooner in the Caribbean after earning his master's license, and in 1937 he served as mate on a world cruise of the brigantine Yankee.
5.
Sterling Hayden spoke of his nautical experiences before the monthly meeting of the Adventurers' Club of New York on March 21,1940.
6.
In 1938, Sterling Hayden's photo was taken during the annual Gloucester, Massachusetts, Fishermen's Race.
7.
Sterling Hayden did a test in New York with Jeanne Cagney, James Cagney's sister.
8.
Sterling Hayden enlisted in the Army and was sent to Scotland for training, but broke his ankle and was discharged.
9.
Sterling Hayden was reportedly worried that his fellow Marines would not take him seriously because of his Hollywood fame, and so he adopted the pseudonym "John Hamilton", which he would carry throughout his war service.
10.
Sterling Hayden made two films for Pine Thomas Productions which distributed through Paramount: one was a Western, El Paso, featuring John Payne; the other was Manhandled, a thriller with Dorothy Lamour.
11.
In 1950, Sterling Hayden appeared in one of his most celebrated roles as the tough-guy gunman Dix Handley in the Academy Award-nominated film The Asphalt Jungle.
12.
Immediately, a large group of movie luminaries, including Sterling Hayden, formed the Committee for the First Amendment to protest what they perceived as political harassment.
13.
Sterling Hayden added that after he quit the Party, actress Karen Morley tried to persuade him to rejoin but he refused.
14.
Sterling Hayden named, among others, Robert Lees, Karen Morley, Maurice Murphy, and Abraham Lincoln Polonsky.
15.
Sterling Hayden had a prominent role alongside Bette Davis in The Star.
16.
Sterling Hayden followed these two performances with a series of action films: Denver and Rio Grande, a Western for Paramount; Hellgate, another Western; The Golden Hawk, a pirate swashbuckler for producer Sam Katzman; Flat Top, a Korean War drama; and Fighter Attack, a World War II film.
17.
Sterling Hayden then returned to medium-budget action films: Take Me to Town, a Western with Ann Sheridan; Kansas Pacific, a Western for Walter Mirisch; and Crime Wave, a film noir.
18.
Sterling Hayden had a supporting role in a major studio picture, Prince Valiant, playing Sir Gawain.
19.
Sterling Hayden followed it with a conventional Western "B picture", Arrow in the Dust.
20.
Sterling Hayden was cast in more film noirs: Naked Alibi with Gloria Grahame and Suddenly with Frank Sinatra.
21.
Sterling Hayden began obtaining acting jobs on TV shows such as Celebrity Playhouse.
22.
In 1956, Sterling Hayden starred in a heist film, The Killing, by an up-and-coming filmmaker named Stanley Kubrick.
23.
Sterling Hayden often professed distaste for film acting, saying he did it mainly to pay for his schooners and voyages.
24.
In 1958, after a bitter divorce from Betty Ann de Noon, Sterling Hayden was awarded custody of their four children.
25.
The crew sailed from San Francisco Bay to Tahiti, where Sterling Hayden had planned to film a movie.
26.
Sterling Hayden invited along the well-known photographer Dody Weston Thompson to document the trip and to help shoot location choices.
27.
Marin County Superior Court Judge Harold Haley later ordered Sterling Hayden to repay Republic Pictures nearly $50,000 to recover the cost of financing the trip.
28.
In November 1960, Sterling Hayden said he was a "sailor or writer" rather than an actor.
29.
In that same year, Sterling Hayden appeared in A Carol for Another Christmas on television.
30.
Sterling Hayden bought a canal barge in the Netherlands in 1969, eventually moving it to the heart of Paris and living on it part of the year.
31.
Sterling Hayden kept a home in Wilton, Connecticut with his family, and he had an apartment in Sausalito.
32.
Sterling Hayden returned to acting with Hard Contract, supporting James Coburn and Loving, co-starring George Segal and Eva Marie Saint.
33.
Sterling Hayden went to Europe where he appeared in Ternos Cacadores, Angel's Leap and Le grand depart.
34.
Sterling Hayden had small but important parts in The Godfather and The Long Goodbye.
35.
Sterling Hayden did more films in Europe: The Final Programme, Deadly Strangers, Cipolla Colt and 1900.
36.
Sterling Hayden was offered the role of "Quint" in Jaws but turned it down.
37.
Sterling Hayden talked about his career resurgence and how it had funded his travels and adventures around the world.
38.
Sterling Hayden appeared on the Canadian sci-fi TV series The Starlost, and the American detective show Banacek.
39.
Sterling Hayden returned to Hollywood for King of the Gypsies, Winter Kills, The Outsider, 9 to 5, Gas, Venom and The Blue and the Gray.
40.
Sterling Hayden wrote two acclaimed books: an autobiography, Wanderer, and a novel, Voyage.
41.
Sterling Hayden said they made him "a lot of money" but he lost most of it to taxes.
42.
Sterling Hayden was later married to Catherine Devine McConnell from 1960 until his death.
43.
Sterling Hayden died of prostate cancer in Sausalito in 1986, age 70.