Sterling Hayden

In 1941, Paramount studios started advertising him as "The Most Beautiful Man in the Movies!"

Was first choice of producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown to play the role of Quint in Jaws , but Haydens tax problems with the US government--he lived outside the country and if he entered the US he would have been arrested--precluded his taking the role.

Dropped out of high school at the age of 15 and became a sailor, earning his masters license by the age of 21.

When the US entered World War II, Hayden changed his name to John Hamilton to obscure his Hollywood past, and joined the Office of Strategic Services--the predecessor of the CIA--headed by Col. "Wild Bill" Donovan, whose son Hayden had sailed with. Trained in guerrilla warfare, Hayden operated a fishing boat off of Yugoslavia to pick up downed Allied pilots and to supply Josip Broz Tito s Communist partisans. He won a Silver Star and a promotion to captain by the time he was discharged in 1945. He had also become enthusiastic about Communism, and joined the Communist Party after he returned to Hollywood. According to Kenneth Lloyd Billingsleys book "Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry in the 1930s and 1940s", he was recruited by actress Karen Morley , who was a party activist, and screenwriter and future director Abraham Polonsky assigned him to a group of backlot workers to learn union militancy. He and others like him were, according to Billingsley, tasked with swinging the Screen Writers Guild to the supposedly Communist-controlled Conference of Studio Unions, which launched a strike against the studios in 1946-1947. Communist Party membership was secret, and they were to keep their identities secret from other non-Communist industry and union people, Billingsley claimed. Hayden later joined the Committee for the First Amendment, a group of politically active Hollywood actors that included John Huston , Humphrey Bogart , Lauren Bacall , Gene Kelly , Danny Kaye and John Garfield that opposed the House Un-American Activities Committees persecution of the Hollywood 19, who were suspected of Communist Party membership (the 19 later devolved into the Hollywood 10). Huston vetted the groups members to ensure that none of them were or had been Communists, and when it came out that Hayden was one, the group broke up. Members like Bogart felt that they had been used by the Communist Party, and were not amused.

Had four children with Betty Ann de Noon. The couple married and divorced three times and went through a nasty custody battle.

He was the original choice to play the knife thrower Britt in The Magnificent Seven . The part went to James Coburn when Hayden proved unavailable.

Bought a canal barge in the Netherlands and moved it to Paris to live on it part of the time.

Had six children: Christian, Dana, Gretchen and Matthew with Betty Ann de Noon; Andrew and David with Catherine Devine McConnell.

In his childhood, he lived in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. and Maine.

In 1980, the perpetually hard-up-for-cash Hayden was cast in the film Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen at a salary of $250,000 ($50,000 per week for five weeks), but broke his contract to go to Yugoslavia to cover the death of Josip Broz Tito for "Rolling Stone" magazine on spec, with no money up front. He told Tom Snyder in a 1981 interview on "The Tomorrow Show" that he never did finish the article.

According to his 1963 memoir "Wanderer", Hayden reluctantly accepted a co-starring role in A Summer Place for $40,000 (approximately $314,000 in 2012 dollars) when his ex-wife Betty Ann de Noon prevented him from sailing to Scandinavia in his sloop The Wanderer with their four children. Hayden took the part because he was broke due to legal bills related to his three divorces from De Noon and their prolonged child custody battle and because of his cavalier disregard for money. A seasoned sailor, he intended to use the sea voyage, which he planned to film as a TV series or a documentary, as a vehicle to leave Hollywood behind. He took a $50,000 advance for the documentary but never made it or "A Summer Place". Hayden appeared in only one TV show in 1960 before making Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb four years later for his The Killing director Stanley Kubrick , as he followed through with his plan to ditch Hollywood.

Eric Roberts , his co-star in King of the Gypsies , claimed that Hayden was a regular smoker of hashish.

Universal Studios were so keen on having Sterling play the role of Quint in Jaws they tried to get round his tax problems. Being heavily in debt to the IRS for back taxes had caused Sterling to live abroad for many years and if he entered the States to do film work most of his pay would be seized by the IRS. However he was also a writer and those earnings wouldnt be subject to any penalty so the studio came up with the idea of paying him the union rate for the film and a large sum for a script but the IRS saw through the scheme and put a stop to it.

Was considered for the role of Tarzan by Sol Lesser Productions/RKO Radio Pictures to replaced Johnny Weissmuller. Desiring more dramatic parts and a more serious career, he declined in favor of Lex Barker.

Sterling Haydens agent thought Sterling should have been a "nineteenth century sea captain.".

Incredible, really - how I got away with it; parlaying nine years at sea,into two decades of posturing.

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm,foundation of financial unrest. If you are contemplating a voyage and,you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change.

Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

[on his films] Bastards, most of them, conceived in contempt of life and,spewn out onto screens across the world with noxious ballyhoo; saying,nothing, contemptuous of the truth, sullen, and lecherous.

[on why he hated acting] Because, in the final analysis, an actor is,only a pawn - brilliant sometimes, rare and talented, capable of,bringing pleasure and even inspiration to others, but no less a pawn,for that.

[on his fling with Communism] What did I care for labor? For racial,discrimination? For civil liberties and the war between the classes?,Oh, I cared in my own fashion. I cared just enough to embrace these,things as props, flailing away night after night at semi-drunken,parties.

I wonder whether there has ever before been a man who bought a schooner,and joined the Communist Party all on the same day.

I did nothing in 1947, for which Paramount paid me $70,000.

I started at the top and worked my way down.

. and start one hell of a fire.

I work when I get broke or when something comes along that has some,integrity or guts.

He has the power, he goes ahead, upsets those who plan schedules, takes,his own time, follows his own genius.

The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked with dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.

The years thunder by. The dreams of youth grow dimwhere they liecaked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then lies the answer?In choice. Which shall it be:Bankruptcy of Purseor Bankruptcy of Life?,Deterrence is the art of producing, in the mind of the enemy, the fear to attack.

Wind to a sailor is what money is to life on shore. .