Lee Marvin (February 19, 1924 – August 29, 1987) was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6`2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers, and other hard-boiled characters, but after winning a Best Actor Oscar for his part in Cat Ballou, he landed more heroic and sympathetic leading roles.
Biography
Early life and World War II
Lee Marvin (his birth name, contrary to some sources) was born in New York City, New York, the son of Lamont Waltman Marvin, an advertising executive and the head of the New York and New England Apple Institute, and his wife Courtenay Washington Davidge, a fashion writer and beauty consultant.[1] His father was a direct descendant of Matthew Marvin, Sr., who emigrated from Great Bentley, Essex, England in 1635 and helped found Hartford, Connecticut.
Marvin attended St. Leo Preparatory College in St. Leo, Florida (now known as St. Leo University) after being expelled from several schools for bad behavior. He left school to join the U.S. 4th Marine Division, serving as a sniper. He was wounded in action during the WWII Battle of Saipan, eight months prior to the Battle of Iwo Jima. Most of his platoon were killed during the battle. This had a significant effect on Marvin for the rest of his life.[2] He was awarded the Purple Heart medal and was given a medical discharge with the rank of Private First Class.[3]
Acting career
While working as a plumber's assistant, repairing a toilet at a local community theater in upstate New York, Marvin was asked to replace an actor who had fallen ill during rehearsals. He then began an amateur off-Broadway acting career in New York City and served as an understudy in Broadway productions.
In 1950, Marvin moved to Hollywood. He quickly found work in supporting roles, and from the beginning was cast in various Western films and WWII or Korean War films. As a decorated combat veteran, Marvin was a natural in war dramas, where he frequently assisted the director and other actors in realistically portraying infantry movement, arranging costumes, and even adjusting war surplus military prop firearms. His debut was in You're in the Navy Now (1951), and in 1952 he appeared in several films, including Don Siegel's Duel at Silver Creek, Hangman's Knot, and the war drama Eight Iron Men. He played Gloria Grahame's vicious boyfriend in Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953). Marvin had a small but memorable role in The Wild One (1953) opposite Marlon Brando (Marvin's gang in the film was called "The Beetles"), followed by Seminole (1953) and Gun Fury (1953). He was again praised for his role as Hector the small town hood in Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) with Spencer Tracy.
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 "The Grave" (1961, episode #72), in which he played a fearless gunman investigating the haunted grave of a man who swore to get revenge on him, and "Steel" (1963, episode #122 ), 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. The Killers was also the first movie in which Marvin received top billing 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.
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 six, Marvin was twice married:
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).[4]
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.[5][6]
During the 1970s, Marvin resided off and on in Woodstock, New York. He died of a coma induced heart attack and is interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
Marvin enjoyed Marlin fishing and made frequent trips to Cairns, Australia to engage in the sport.[7]
Trivia
When visiting co-star Vivien Leigh at her home in London, England, with Michelle Triola, 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.
When filming a movie in Las Vegas in 1966, he and others complained that Vegas Vic's "howdy partner" was too loud. The voice box was removed.[8]
Marvin, who originally was a student of the late Bruce Lee, once again began training in martial arts in 1981 with SeishinDo Kenpo instructor Frank Landers. (Inside Kung-Fu Magazine, August 1981).
A rumor 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.
Jim Jarmusch relates the following anecdote:
- "A secret organization exists called The Sons of Lee Marvin - it includes myself, Tom Waits, John Lurie, and Richard Bose... Six months ago, Tom Waits was in a bar somewhere like Sonoma County in Northern California, and the bartender said:
- 'You’re Tom Waits, right? A guy over there wants to talk to you.'
- Tom went over to this dark corner booth and the guy sitting there said,
- 'Sit down, I want to talk to you.'
- 'What do you want to talk to me about? I don’t know you.'
- 'What is this bullshit about the Sons of Lee Marvin?'
- 'Well, it’s a secret organization and I’m not supposed to talk about it.'
- 'I don’t like it.'
- 'What’s it to you?'
- 'I’m Lee Marvin’s son', and he really was.
- He thought it was insulting, although its intention is to be completely out of respect for Lee Marvin."[9]
In the 1993 Denis Leary song "I'm an Asshole," Leary states he is going to get the Duke (John Wayne), John Cassavetes, Lee Marvin, Sam Peckinpah and a case of whiskey then drive down to Texas before being cutoff by a bandmate and getting called an asshole.
Partial filmography
Television appearances
See also
References
External links
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