Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

Famous People Column – An open Column for all writers

February 23, 2008

This one to publish
Lee Marvin

Date of Birth - 19 February 1924, New York, New York, USA

Date of Death - 29 August 1987, Tucson, Arizona, USA (heart attack)

Height - 6' 2" (1.88 m)

Prematurely white-haired character star who began as a supporting player of generally vicious demeanor, then metamorphosed into a star of both action and drama projects, Lee Marvin was born in New York City to Lamont Waltman Marvin, an advertising executive, and his wife Courtenay Washington Davidge, a fashion writer. The young Marvin was thrown out of dozens of schools for incorrigibility. His parents took him to Florida, where he attended St. Leo's Preparatory School near Dade City. Dismissed there as well, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps at the beginning of World War II.

A rumour circulated via the internet in recent years alleges that during an appearance on "The Tonight Show," Marvin told host Johnny Carson that he had served in the Marine Corps fighting alongside Bob Keeshan (later known as Captain Kangaroo) at the Battle of Iwo Jima. There is no truth whatsoever to this tale. Marvin never told the story, did not fight at Iwo Jima as he had been invalided out months before, and Keeshan enlisted too late to have seen combat in any form.

In the battle of Saipan in June 1944, he was wounded in the buttocks by Japanese fire which severed his sciatic nerve. He received a medical discharge and got menial work as a plumber's apprentice in Woodstock, NY. While repairing a toilet at the local community theater, he was asked to replace an ailing actor in a rehearsal. He was immediately stricken with a love for the theater and went to New York City, where he studied and played small roles in stock and Off-Broadway. He landed an extra role in Henry Hathaway's You're in the Navy Now (1951), and found his role expanded when Hathaway took a liking to him. Returning to the stage, he made his Broadway debut in "Billy Budd", and after a succession of small TV roles, moved to Hollywood, where he began playing heavies and cops in roles of increasing size and frequency.

During the mid-1950s, Marvin gradually began playing more substantial roles. He starred in Attack! (1956), and The Missouri Traveler (1958) but it took over one hundred episodes as Chicago cop Frank Ballinger in the successful 1957-1960 television series M Squad to actually give him name recognition. One critic described the show as "a hyped-up, violent Dragnet... with a tough-as-nails Marvin" playing a police lieutenant.

In the 1960s, Marvin was given prominent co-starring roles such as The Comancheros (1961), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962; Marvin played Liberty Valance) and Donovan's Reef (1963), all with John Wayne. Marvin also guest-starred in Combat! "The Bridge at Chalons" (Episode 34, Season 2, Mission 1), and The Twilight Zone episodes #72 The Grave (1961), in which he played a fearless gunman investigating the haunted grave of a man who swore to get revenge on him, and #122 Steel (1963), in which he played a former boxer who gets into the ring with a boxing robot.

Thanks to director Don Siegel, Marvin appeared in the groundbreaking The Killers (1964) playing an organized, no-nonsense, efficient, businesslike professional assassin whose character was copied to a great degree by Samuel L. Jackson in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction. This film was also the first time Marvin received top billing in a movie and the only time Ronald Reagan played a villain.

Marvin won the 1965 Academy Award for Best Actor for his comic role in the offbeat western Cat Ballou starring Jane Fonda. Following roles in The Professionals (1966) and the hugely successful The Dirty Dozen (1967), Marvin was given complete control over his next film. In Point Blank, an influential film with director John Boorman, he portrayed a hard-nosed criminal bent on revenge. In that film Marvin, who had selected Boorman himself for the director's slot, had a central role in the film's development, plot line, and staging. In 1968, Marvin also appeared in another Boorman film, the critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful Hell in the Pacific, co-starring famed Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune. He had a hit song with "Wand'rin' Star" from the western musical Paint Your Wagon (1969).

Marvin had a much greater variety of roles in the 1970s and 1980s, with fewer 'bad-guy' roles than in earlier years. His 1970s films included Monte Walsh (1970), Prime Cut (1972), Pocket Money (1972), Emperor of the North Pole (1973), The Iceman Cometh (1973) as Hickey, The Spikes Gang (1974), The Klansman (1974), Shout at the Devil (1976), The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday (1976), and Avalanche Express (1978). Marvin was offered the role of Quint in Jaws (1975) but declined. He later expressed considerable regret at not accepting this role.

Marvin's last big role was in Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One (1980). His remaining films were Death Hunt (1981), Gorky Park (1983), Dog Day (1984), The Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission (1985), with his final appearance being in The Delta Force (1986).

Personal life:

A father of four, Marvin was twice married:

Betty Ebeling (February 1951 - January 5, 1967) (divorced).

Pamela Feeley (October 18, 1970 - Marvin's death).

In 1971, Marvin was sued by long-time girlfriend Michelle Triola (who called herself Michelle Marvin at the time). Though the couple never married, she sought financial compensation similar to that available to spouses under California's alimony and community property laws. The result was the landmark "palimony" case, Marvin v. Marvin 18 Cal. 3d 660 (1976).

On April 18, 1979, Judge Arthur K. Marshall ordered Marvin to pay $104,000 to Triola for "rehabilitation purposes" but denied her community property claim for one-half of the $3.6 million which Marvin had earned during their six years of cohabitation. In August 1981, however, the California Court of Appeal reversed this decision, declaring that Triola was entitled to no money whatsoever, in that the co-habitant in an unmarried cohabitative relationship has no community property claim, but merely a contract claim. Without evidence of any contract between Marvin and Triola requiring that Marvin support her should their relationship end, Triola could not recover any money.

During the 1970s, Marvin resided off and on in Woodstock, NY. He died of a coma induced heart attack and is interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

Trivia:

Says he learned to "act" in the Marines, trying to act unafraid during ferocious combat, which brought him a Purple Heart during invasion of Saipan.

His body was interred next to that of Joe Louis in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA.

Son Christopher born 1952.

Daughter Courtenay born 1954.

Daughter Cynthia born 1956.

Daughter Claudia born 1958.

Was a direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson and twice a descendant of male line relatives of George Washington.

Was Steven Spielberg's first choice to play Quint in Jaws (1975).

Was as surprised as anyone when his recording of "Wandering Star", from the Paint Your Wagon (1969) soundtrack, became a surprise hit, earning the Gold Record (the standard in those days) for one million copies sold in 1969.

Not a sentimental man by nature, Marvin kept only four souvenirs of his career over the years. These were his Best Actor Oscar for Cat Ballou (1965), the citation he received from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame for his performance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), his Gold Record for "Wandering Star" and the high-heeled shoe that Vivien Leigh beat him with in Ship of Fools (1965).

Named after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, who was his second cousin three times removed.

Bonded with co-star Vivien Leigh on the set of Ship of Fools (1965). When he and his partner Michelle Triola visited Leigh at her exquisite home in England, he tore up a deck of antique playing cards that they were playing with. Much to Triola's surprise, Leigh was not at all disturbed by Marvin's boorish behavior but seemed enchanted by him.

While serving in the Marine Corps he became best friends with John Miara of Malden, MA. Miara became Marvin's model for the character of Maj. Reisman in The Dirty Dozen (1967).

Turned down the lead role of Gen. George S. Patton Jr. in Patton (1970).

Revisited Saipan (where he was wounded during World War II) in 1967, where his guide was P.F. Kluge, who went on to write Eddie and the Cruisers (1983).

Together with actors Nicolas Cage  - (Adaptation.

 (2002)) Jos? Ferrer (Moulin Rouge (1952)) and Peter Sellers (Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)), he is the only actor with an Oscar nomination for playing multiple characters in a film (in Cat Ballou (1965), he plays two characters, Kid Shelleen and Tim Strawn). Marvin is the only one who actually won one for a double role.

Could not ride a motorcycle at the time The Wild One (1953) was filmed but, determined not to be bettered by the star, Marlon Brando, he quickly learned. He later became a keen competitor on his Triumph 200cc Tiger Cub in desert races.

Was offered the role of Col. Douglas Mortimer in Per qualche dollaro in pi? (1965), but turned it down to star in Cat Ballou (1965).

Was offered the lead in The War of the Worlds (1953).

Burial: - - - Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington - Arlington County - Virginia, USA
Plot: Section 7A, Lot 176, Map Grid U-24

Hartson S. Dowd