David Hedison 1927-2019
Albert David Hedison, Jr. (May 20, 1927 – July 18, 2019) was an American film, television, and stage actor.
Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Hedison decided he wanted to be an actor after he saw Tyrone Power in the film Blood and Sand. After serving in the U.S, Navy, he began his acting career with the Sock and Buskin Players at Brown University before moving to New York to study with Sanford Meisner and Martha Graham at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre and with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. His work on the New York stage includes an appearance in Much Ado About Nothing (1952). Hedison also appeared on television in Kraft Television Theatre and Star Tonight. Hedison signed a film contract with 20th Century Fox in May 1957 and appeaered in the films The Enemy Below (1957), The Fly (1958), and The Son of Robin Hood (1958). Hedison was cast in the lead of a TV series made by Fox for NBC, Five Fingers (1959), which only lasted one season. Hedison worked regularly on television, guest starring in Perry Mason, The Saint, and The Farmer's Daughter. Irwin Allen offered Hedison the lead role in the television series of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, co-starring with Richard Basehart, which ran from 1964 to 1968. After the series ended, Hedison moved to London. Hedison made numerous appearances in film and television including Shaft, Medical Center, The Manhunter, Cannon, Bronk, Ellery Queen, Family, Barnaby Jones, and Wonder Woman. Hedison played Felix Leiter in the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973) and later reprised the role in another James Bond film Licence to Kill (1989). In 2006 and 2007, Hedison worked on four audio books. The first, McKnight's Memory, was first released in October 2007. The second, The King, McQueen and the Love Machine, was released June 15, 2008. The third project was a 12-minute introduction to the reissue of The James Bond Lifestyle that came out June 7, 2007. His fourth audio book project, The Casino Caper, was released in August 2007.
Hedison passed away on July 18, 2019, in Los Angeles, California at the age of 92.