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Name: Lee Marvin
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Date of Birth:
February 19, 1924
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Place of Birth:
New York, New York, USA
Mini-bio:
Prematurely white-haired character star who began as a supporting player of
generally vicious demeanor, then metamorphosed into a star of both action
and drama projects, Lee Marvin was born in New...( read more) York City to Lamont Marvin,
an advertising executive, and his wife Courtenay, a fashion writer. The
young Marvin was thrown out of dozens of schools for incorrigibility. His
parents took him to Florida, where he attended St. Leo's Preparatory School
near Dade City. Dismissed there as well, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine
Corps at the beginning of World War II. In the battle of Saipan in June
1944, he was wounded in the buttocks by Japanese fire which severed his
sciatic nerve. He received a medical discharge and got menial work as a
plumber's apprentice in Woodstock, NY. While repairing a toilet at the local
community theater, he was asked to replace an ailing actor in a rehearsal.
He was immediately stricken with a love for the theater and went to New York
City, where he studied and played small roles in stock and Off-Broadway. He
landed an extra role in Henry Hathaway's You're in the Navy Now (1951), and
found his role expanded when Hathaway took a liking to him. Returning to the
stage, he made his Broadway debut in "Billy Budd", and after a succession of
small TV roles, moved to Hollywood, where he began playing heavies and cops
in roles of increasing size and frequency. Given a leading role in Eight
Iron Men (1952), he followed it with enormously memorable heavies in The Big
Heat (1953) and The Wild One (1953). Now established as a major screen
villain, Marvin began shifting toward leading roles with a successful run as
a police detective in the TV series "M Squad" (1957). A surprise Oscar for
his dual role as a drunken gunfighter and his evil, noseless brother in the
western comedy Cat Ballou (1965) placed him in the upper tiers of Hollywood
leading men, and he filled out his career with predominantly action-oriented
films. A long-term romantic relationship with Michelle Triola led, after
their breakup, to a highly publicized lawsuit in which Triola asked for a
substantial portion of Marvin's assets. Her case failed in its main pursuit,
but did establish a legal precedent for the rights of unmarried cohabitors,
the so-called "palimony" law. Marvin continued making films of varying
quality, always as a star, until his sudden death from a heart attack in
1987.