Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin (born February 19, 1924 in New York , † August 29, 1987 in Tucson , Arizona ) was an American actor . In the 1960s and 1970s he was able to book numerous film successes as an actor of rough loners.
Life
Lee Marvin was born the son of an advertising manager and fashion editor.
Marvin was known for his indiscipline and attended eleven different schools. During World War II he enlisted in the US Marines and was assigned to the 4th US Marine Division. He was so badly wounded during the Battle of Saipan that he could not walk for a year. He was awarded the Purple Heart for this. Marvin later stated that he learned acting with the Marines while trying to appear fearless during battles.
After his recovery, Marvin worked as an apprentice plumber. He stood in for a sick actor on a provincial stage and later took acting lessons at New York's American Theater Wing . Lee Marvin was married twice, between 1951 and 1967 to Betty Ebeling, with whom he had four children, and from 1970 until his death to Pamela Feeley. When he ended a multi-year illegitimate relationship in the late 1970s, he was sued by his ex-lover, who claimed half of his fortune from him. Although the judge dismissed the request, Marvin had to pay several hundred thousand dollars.
Lee Marvin, known for his heavy drinking, named a mixture of gin and Guinness beer as his favorite drink . Marvin was a liberal who advocated gay rights in the late 1960s and supported Democratic presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy in 1968 .
He died of a heart attack in 1987 and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
plant
Stage and television
From 1947 Lee Marvin was employed as a theater actor in the provinces, in 1950 he played his first television role. After his Broadway debut at the Biltmore Theater as Captain of the Navy in the play Billy Budd (based on a novel by Herman Melville , later filmed by Peter Ustinov ) in 1951, he also received supporting roles in Hollywood , where he usually as Villain was seen. As head of a motorcycle gang, he rivaled Marlon Brando in the rocker film Der Wilde (1953) ; In 1955, he played a small town racist in the Spencer Tracy classic City in Fear .
On television he was on the right side of the law for three years from 1957 and took on the role of Lieutenant Frank Ballinger in the crime series Dezernat M (original title: M Squad ). Marvin became a television star and shot more than 100 episodes of this popular series, which from 1966 was also shown on the ZDF evening program . M Squad was later parodied in the film series The Naked Cannon .
Until the mid-1960s, Marvin played numerous television roles, but was also regularly seen as a film actor - but mostly in supporting roles. In 1962 he played in the western classic The Man Who Liberty Valance shot his most famous villain role , the eponymous criminal and sadist Liberty Valance, who brutally beats James Stewart with a whip. The following year he starred alongside John Wayne in the comedy The Tahiti Harbor Pub . In the gangster drama The Death of a Killer from 1964 (with Angie Dickinson and John Cassavetes and with Ronald Reagan in his last film role) Marvin took on the role of a professional killer.
Success in Hollywood
After he had become increasingly popular in his acting career, which at that time had lasted almost 20 years, Marvin finally achieved his breakthrough in Hollywood in 1965 with a double role tailor-made for him. In the western comedy Cat Ballou - Hang You Should Be in Wyoming , he played a drunkard gunslinger who competes against his diabolical twin brother in a duel.
Marvin won an Oscar for it and has been one of the most popular stars for years. The tall, weathered-looking, early gray actor did not correspond to the usual type and rather had the image of an unglamorous anti-star . He usually wore a sullen and dismissive expression and mostly played solitary characters who did not afford any sentimentality.
In Stanley Kramer's drama Das Narrenschiff , Marvin was part of a top-class international star cast with Vivien Leigh , Simone Signoret , Oskar Werner and Heinz Rühmann . In 1966 he played in the western The feared four next to Burt Lancaster an adventurer who is supposed to bring back a kidnapped wife ( Claudia Cardinale ).
Marvin's greatest success was the war film The Dirty Dozen , in which he was seen as a tough grinder who drills a group of death row inmates for a special task force. The star-studded film ( Charles Bronson , Telly Savalas , Ernest Borgnine , George Kennedy , Donald Sutherland , John Cassavetes ) was one of the biggest box office hits of 1967 and at the same time controversial because of its severity and brutality. In the same year Marvin was also seen in the gangster thriller Point Blank in the role of Walker (without a name), who instigates a merciless campaign of revenge in the underworld. The film, directed by John Boorman , used numerous unusual stylistic devices and is considered innovative for its time .
|
Chart positions Explanation of the data |
||||||||||||||||||
| Singles | ||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
In 1968 Marvin acted in the two-person drama We Are Hell, alongside the Japanese star Toshirō Mifune, as a World War II soldier and was able to fall back on personal experience. In 1969 the actor was seen in the western musical Westwards the Wind pulls as a singing gold digger alongside Clint Eastwood . With the heyday of Hollywood musicals over in the late 1960s, the film, which was produced on a high budget of $ 20 million, was not a success. However, Marvin was able to record a surprising hit parade in 1970 with the ballad Wand'rin 'Star, which he sang in the film . In the song, Marvin pondered the lonely wild west life in a grating voice.
1973 Lee Marvin delivered himself in Robert Aldrich's tough action thriller A Train for Two Scoundrels , which was set in the 1930s, when Hobo had a bitter duel with the train conductor ( Ernest Borgnine ), who used the most brutal means against dodgers. Marvin and Borgnine performed risky stunts on the moving trains themselves .
Marvin's popularity gradually waned in the 1970s. The actor repeatedly turned down important roles in films that became great successes. Sam Peckinpah offered him the lead role in The Wild Bunch in 1969, to no avail - They knew no law , which William Holden then took over. In 1970 he was to play General George S. Patton in Franklin J. Schaffner's Patton Rebel in Uniform , which George C. Scott later won an Oscar . Steven Spielberg wanted to cast him as the rough-and-ready captain in Jaws (1975), but Marvin refused.
Instead, the actor increasingly appeared in films that had little resonance at the box office, including Two Warriors on the Move (1971, alongside Paul Newman ), The Iceman Cometh (1973) based on the play of the same name by Eugene O'Neill and In Verflucht them all (1974). He also starred in the critically- slated disaster film Avalanche Express (1979) and appeared in the 1980 war drama The Big Red One directed by Samuel Fuller , which was also set in World War II. In 1981, 14 years after The Dirty Dozen , he met Charles Bronson again, who had become a popular action star, while filming the adventure film Yukon .
In the 1980s, Marvin was hardly present as a cinema actor. In 1983 he played a seedy American businessman in Moscow in the hit thriller Gorky Park . In 1985 he took over the role of Major Reisman again for the television film Das dreckige Dutzend Part 2 ( The Dirty Dozen: The Next Mission ). 1986, a year before his death, he starred in the action film The Delta Force alongside Chuck Norris his last role.
Awards
- 1962: Emmy nomination for "Alcoa Premiere" for an outstanding solo performance in a leading role.
- 1963: Western Heritage Awards , "Bronze Wrangler" for his role in " The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance " ( The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance ).
- 1965: Silver Bear at the 1965 Berlinale for his portrayal in “ Cat Ballou ”.
- 1966: Oscar for best actor in a leading role for "Cat Ballou".
- 1966: British Film Academy Award for Best Foreign Actor for "Cat Ballou" and "The Killers"
- 1966: Golden Globe as best film actor in "Cat Ballou".
- 1966: Laurel Awards , Golden Laurel in the category "Male Comedy Performance" for "Cat Ballou".
- 1966: National Board of Review Award for Best Actor for "Cat Ballou".
- 1967: Laurel Awards , Golden Laurel in the “Action Performance” category for “ The Fearful Four ” ( The Professionals ).
- 1968: Laurel Awards , Golden Laurel in the “Action Performance” category for “ Das dreckige Dutzend ” ( The Dirty Dozen ).
- 1970: Golden Globe nomination for " Westwards is the wind " ( Paint Your Wagon ) for best film actor.
- 1971: Fotogramas de Plata , award for best foreign actor.
Filmography
|
|
literature
- Robert J. Lentz: Lee Marvin - His Films. Reinhard Weber Verlag, Landshut 2012, ISBN 978-3-9431270-2-7 .
- Peter Kranzpiller: Lee Marvin. Eppe, Bergatreute 2005 ( Stars of the Cinema Series , No. 48).
- Robert J. Lentz: Lee Marvin. His Films and Career. McFarland, Jefferson, NC 2000, ISBN 0-7864-0723-9 .
- John Boorman: Adventures of a Suburban Boy. Faber & Faber, London 2003 ISBN 0-571-21695-1 (English) → on Lee Marvin in detail, pp. 126–167.
Web links
- Lee Marvin in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Lee Marvin in the Internet Broadway Database (English)
- Lee Marvin biography at WHO'S WHO
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Marvin, Lee |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | US-American actor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 19, 1924 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | new York |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 29, 1987 |
| Place of death | Tucson , Arizona |