RORY CALHOUN

Rory Calhoun (born Francis Timothy McCown, but known as "Frank") was a movie and TV actor from the 1940s to the 1990s. He was born in 1922 in Los Angeles, and he had many jobs before becoming an actor, including as a boxer, a lumberjack, a truck driver and a cowpuncher. He also became a car thief, and he spent three years in a reformatory while a teenager (which was covered up for many years). He was discovered by agent Sue Carol in the early 1940s, and his first movie was as an uncredited soldier in "Something For the Boys" in 1944, billed as "Frank McCown". David O. Selznick hired him and changed his name to Rory Calhoun, and in the early 1950s, he had substantial success, including in two movies with Marilyn Monroe, River of No Return and How to Marry a Millionaire. In 1955, his agent, in response to Confidential magazine threatening to expose Rock Hudson's homosexuality, agreed to tell them about Mr. Calhoun's criminal background in exchange for their silence on Mr. Hudson, and they printed the expose, but fortunately, it did not have much negative effect on Mr. Calhoun's career! In 1959 to 1960, he starred in TV's "The Texan". His career stalled after that, and in 1970, he divorced his actress wife Lita Baron, whom he had been married to for 22 years and had three children with. In the divorce hearing, she named 79 women that he had had affairs with, and he said "Heck, she didn't even include half of them.", and given his good looks and his tall stature (6' 4"), we don't doubt it! In 1982, he joined the daytime soap opera "Capitol", and he appeared on that for 5 years. His final appearance on screen was when he was 70 in 1992, and he passed away in 1999 at the age of 76.