Name | Gig Young |
---|---|
Caption | Young in the trailer for the film Old Acquaintance (1943) |
Birth date | November 04, 1913 |
Birth place | St. Cloud, Minnesota |
Death date | October 19, 1978 |
Death place | New York City, New York |
Birth name | Byron Elsworth Barr |
Occupation | actor |
Yearsactive | 1940 - 1978 |
Spouse | Sheila Stapler (1940-1947)Sophie Rosenstein (1950-1952)Elizabeth Montgomery (1956-1963)Elaine Williams (1963-1966)Kim Schmidt (1978) |
Gig Young (November 4, 1913 – October 19, 1978) was an American film, stage, and television actor.
Young appeared in supporting roles in numerous films during the 1940s, and came to be regarded as a popular and likable second lead, playing the brothers or friends of the principal characters. Young took a hiatus from his movie career and enlisted in the United States Coast Guard in 1941 where he served as a pharmacist's mate in the US Coast Guard until the end of World War II. After Young's return from the war, Warner Bros. dropped his option. He then began freelancing at various studios, eventually obtaining a contract with Columbia Pictures before returning to freelancing. During those years, Young began to play the type of role that he would become best known for, a sardonic but engaging and affable drunk. His dramatic work as an alcoholic in the 1951 film Come Fill the Cup and his comedic role as a tipsy but ultimately charming intellectual in Teacher's Pet earned him nominations for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Young won the Academy Award for his role as Rocky, the dance marathon emcee and promoter in the 1969 film They Shoot Horses, Don't They? According to his fourth wife, Elaine Williams, "What he was aching for, as he walked up to collect his Oscar, was a role in his own movie—one that they could finally call 'a Gig Young movie.' For Young, the Oscar was literally the kiss of death, the end of the line". Young himself had said to Louella Parsons, after failing to win in 1951, "so many people who have been nominated for an Oscar have had bad luck afterwards."
Young also is remembered by many James Dean fans for the "driving safety" interview made shortly before Dean's death in September, 1955. (The interview can be seen on YouTube by searching for "James Dean driving safety")
Alcoholism plagued his later years, causing him to lose acting roles. He was fired on the first day of shooting the comedy film Blazing Saddles after collapsing on the set due to withdrawals from alcohol. Young's last role was in the 1978 film Game of Death (1979), a film released nearly six years after the film's star, Bruce Lee, died in 1973.
He met actress Elizabeth Montgomery after she appeared in an episode of Warner Bros. Presents in 1956, and the two married later that year. In 1963, Montgomery divorced Young because of his alcoholism.
Young married his fourth wife, real estate agent Elaine Williams, nine months after his divorce from Montgomery was final. Williams was pregnant with Young's child at the time and gave birth to his only child, Jennifer, in April 1964. After three years of marriage, the couple divorced. During a legal battle over child support with Williams, Young denied that Jennifer was his biological child. After five years of court battles, Young lost his case.
On September 27, 1978, Young married his fifth wife, a 21-year-old German woman named Kim Schmidt. He met Schmidt in 1977 on the set of the Clive Donner TV movie "Spectre", in which she played a police officer. No motive for the murder-suicide was ever made clear.
He was buried in the Green Hill Cemetery in Waynesville, North Carolina. Young's will, which covered a $200,000 estate, left his Academy Award to his agent, Martin Baum and Baum's wife, Bernice.
For his contribution to the television industry, Young has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard.
Category:1913 births Category:1978 deaths Category:Actors who committed suicide Category:American film actors Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:American military personnel of World War II Category:American murderers Category:Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winners Category:Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Murder–suicides Category:People from St. Cloud, Minnesota Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Suicides by firearm in New York Category:United States Coast Guard personnel
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