Stuart Whitman, Star of 'Cimarron
Strip' and 'The Mark,' Dies at 92
The leading man also stood out in 'The Comancheros' and
'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.'
The Hollywood Reporter
By Mike Barnes, Duane Byrge
3/17/2020
Stuart Whitman, the rugged actor who starred on TV's Cimarron
Strip and received an Oscar nomination for playing a convicted child
molester trying to rid himself of psychological demons in The Mark,
has died. He was 92.
Whitman died Monday of natural causes at his home in Montecito, California,
his son Justin told The Hollywood Reporter.
In his big-screen heyday, Whitman also wooed Joanne Woodward
in The Sound and the Fury (1959), starred opposite Simone Signoret as
an American pilot downed in Nazi-occupied France
in The Day and the Hour (1963) and portrayed the heroic American Orvil
Newton in Those
Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965).
He starred twice opposite John Wayne, first as the New
Orleans gambler Paul Regret in The Comancheros (1961), Michael
Curtiz's final feature, and then as an army lieutenant in the all-star World
War II epic The Longest Day (1962).
Though CBS' Cimarron Strip lasted just one season
(1967-68) and 23 original episodes, Whitman remains known for his turn as
Marshal Jim Crown on the ambitious series, one of the first on television to
run for 90 minutes. He produced and had a financial interest in the period Western
as well.
Whitman also played a patrolman on the Broderick Crawford
series Highway Patrol in the 1950s and appeared as "Pa"
Kent
on the 1988-92 syndicated series Superboy. In Guyana:
Crime of the Century (1979), he starred as a despicable leader of a cult.
In recent years, Whitman showed up as an old friend of Chuck
Norris' on Walker, Texas Ranger.
In the British film The Mark (1961), directed by
Guy Green, Whitman stepped in for Richard Burton, who was busy doing Camelot
on Broadway, to star as a child molester who gets out of prison, enlists the
help of a psychiatrist (Rod Steiger) to try to lead a normal life and then is
outed — wrongly — by a reporter after another kid is reported as a possible
abuse victim.
In its review, The Hollywood Reporter noted that
"Whitman turns in a superbly shaded performance as one who subtly, slowly
emerges from a deeply felt insecurity to some semblance of virile
dignity."
"Near the end of the film I got a call from the writer
[Sidney Buchman] on it, and he said, 'You might get an Oscar out of this
role,'" Whitman recalled in a 2013 interview with Alan K. Rode. "I
said, 'Yeah, sure, right.'"
Whitman did get nominated for best actor but lost out to Judgment
at Nuremberg's Maximilian Schell — whose sister, Maria, played Whitman's
love interest in The Mark. "Maria told me she didn't know who to
vote for that year!” he said.
The field in 1962 also included heavyweights Spencer Tracy,
Paul Newman and Charles Boyer.
Stuart Whitman was born on Feb. 1, 1928, in San Francisco. When he was
3, he and his family moved to Brooklyn, and he
eventually graduated from Hollywood High.
During a two-year stint with the U.S. Army Engineer Corps,
the brawny Whitman won all but one of his 24 boxing matches as a light
heavyweight, then played football and studied acting at Los Angeles City
College. To help make ends meet, he bought, operated and hired out his own
bulldozer.
At the Ben Bard Drama acting school, Whitman appeared as a
prize fighter in a production of Here Comes Mr. Jordan and attracted
the attention of Hollywood talent scouts.
Whitman had his movie debut in When Worlds Collide
(1951), appeared on TV shows like Boston Blackie and Lux Video
Theatre and made an impression opposite Ethel Barrymore and Carolyn Jones
as the wild title character in Johnny Trouble (1957).
When Charlton Heston bowed out of the high-profile Warner
Bros. war movie Darby’s Rangers (1958), James Garner replaced him and
Whitman took on Garner's role, playing the soldier Hank Bishop.
He portrayed a trumpet player who impregnated a young girl
(Diane Varsi) in Ten North Frederick (1958), and signed a contract
with 20th Century Fox. He went on to star in Hound-Dog Man (1959), The
Story of Ruth (1960), Murder, Inc. (1960), Convicts 4
(1962), Shock Treatment (1964), Rio Conchos (1964) and Sands
of the Kalahari (1965).
In the 1970s, Whitman was a stout presence on such shows as The
F.B.I., Night Gallery, S.W.A.T. and Quincy M.E.
and starred on the big screen in Run, Cougar, Run (1972), Shatter
(1974), Jonathan Demme's Crazy Mama (1975) and Eaten Alive
(1976), directed by Tobe Hooper.
Whitman made his last onscreen appearance on the 2000 CBS
movie The President's Man, starring Norris. He reportedly made a
fortune in real estate and retired to his 30-acre ranch in Santa Barbara.
Survivors include his third wife, Yulia, whom he married in
2006; children Justin, Anthony, Michael, Linda and Scott; seven grandchildren;
and four great-grandchildren.
WHITMAN, Stuart
(Stuart Maxwell Whitman)
Born: 2/1/1928, San Francisco, California,
U.S.A.
Died: 3/16/2020, Montecito, California,
U.S.A.
Stuart Whitman’s
westerns – actor:
Barbed Wire – 1952 (cattle buyer)
The Range Rider (TV) – 1952 (Lieutenant Victor)
The Roy Rogers Show (TV) – 1952, 1953 (Monty Abbott, Andy
Norton, Todd)
The Man from the Alamo –
1953 (orderly)
Passion – 1954 (vaquero Bernal)
Silver Lode – 1954 (Wicker)
Stories of the Century (TV) – 1955 (Jack Phillips)
7 Men from Now – 1956 (Lieutenant Collins)
Gunsmoke (TV) – 1956 (Bart)
War Drums – 1957 (Johnny Smith)
Trackdown (TV) – 1957 (Cal fraser)
Zane
Grey Theater
(TV) – 1957 (Dave Jordan)
Have Gun – Will Travel (TV) – 1958 (Gil Borden)
These Thousand Hills – 1959 (Tom Ping)
Frontier Justice (TV) – 1959, 1961 (
The Comancheros – 1961 (Paul Regret) [also singer]
Rio Conchos – 1964 (Captain Haven)
Cimarron Strip (TV) 1967-1968
(Marshal Jim Crown)
Captain Apache – 1971 (Griffin)
Run, Cougar, Run – 1972 (Hugh McRae)
Hec Ramsey (TV) – 1973 (Virgil Bassett)
The White Buffalo
– 1977 (Winifred Coxy)
Go West Young Girl (TV) – 1978 (Deputy Shreeve)
Once Upon a Texas
Train (TV) – 1988 (George Asque)
Deadly Reactor – 1989 (Duke)
The Adventures of Brisco
County Jr. (TV) – 1993 (Granville
Thorogood)
Walker Ranger 3: Deadly Reunion
(TV) – 1994
Walker, Texas
Ranger (TV) – 1994 (Laredo
Jake Boyd)
Shaunesssy (TV) – 1996 (Laredo Jake Boyd)
Time Machine: When Cowboys Were King – 2003 [himself]
