Christopher George

Christopher George was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, on February 25, 1931, the son of Greek immigrants John George originally Georgiou (Greek: Ιωάννης Γεωργίου) and Vaseleke (Vassiliki) George (Greek: Βασιλική Γεωργίου).^[1] His father was born in Thebes and his mother in Athens.^[2]

George did not speak English until he was six years old, because his family only spoke Greek at home.

From Michigan, the family moved to Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.^[5] Once he began learning to speak English, his father enrolled him in Greek school in addition to his regular school so that he would not forget the Greek language. That was where George first became interested in acting; at Greek school they performed Greek plays and recited Greek poetry.^[6]

When he was 14, he and his family moved to

When he was young, George felt bound to become a priest in the Greek Orthodox Church, and his family prepared him for it; his brother Nick said that all through his childhood, Christopher was an altar boy and a choir boy and that his parents and the priest were trying to groom him to become a priest.^[8] He served as an altar boy at St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral^[9] in Miami.^[10]

George enlisted in the United States Marine Corps (USMC) on October 13, 1948, at Jacksonville, Florida, at age 17. He lied about his age on his recruitment form by giving his year of birth as 1929, which then stuck with him for most of his adult life. He attributed his enlistment to being inspired by John Wayne, saying, "You know, he caused the enlistment of hundreds of kids in the Marines and I was one of them."^[11] According to his military record at the National Personnel Records Center, he attended boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, and graduated with a meritorious promotion to private first class on December 31, 1948.

His first duty station was Headquarters Squadron,

While stationed at Quantico, George was a passenger in an aircraft flown by one of AES-12's officers[13] The weather was clear and sunny that day when both of the engines failed at approximately 8,000 feet (2,400 m) above the Carolinas. Both pilots worked to get the engines restarted, dipping to an altitude of about 1,000 feet (300 m) before they succeeded. Another time, an aircraft caught fire; he had to bail out, in the first parachute jump of his life.^[14]

During the Korean War, George commanded a Marine Corps crash boat,^[15] and served as gunner aboard the type of rescue aircraft used to fly wounded out of Korea.^[16][17] He completed a three-year enlistment with the Marines and stayed for an additional year, before requesting an honorable discharge and returning home to Miami.^[10] He left active service on August 29, 1952.

After that, as a sergeant in the

While in the Marine Corps, his superior officers encouraged him to apply for flight school and a commission; instead, he chose to receive a discharge so he could return to school.^[18] He passed a high school equivalency exam.^[6][19]

During the summer of 1976, he appeared in a recruiting film made for the Marine Corps Air Reserve.

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University education

After completing his enlistment, George attended the University of Miami^[22] from 1953 to 1958, where he earned a Bachelor's in Business Administration degree from the school of business. He was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, along with his brother Nick, who also attended the University of Miami.^[23]

George held down a variety of jobs before he began acting for a living, including working as a private investigator and as a bartender in a Miami bar.^[2] He owned and operated eateries and beer bars, one called the Dragnet Drive-In in Miami and another in Stockton, California.^[22] The inn in Stockton where he worked for five months during a break from college had been owned by his late uncle for seven years and was off-limits to Marines.^[2] He held black belts in karate and judo. He worked as a bouncer in tough restaurants and held a pilot's license.^[24]

George was hired by a friend who owned a 110-foot converted Canadian gunboat and transported cargo through the Caribbean for two years.^[22] Before graduating from the University of Miami, he had a job lined up with a big investment company; however he instead turned to acting after completing a vocational test battery that indicated that he should work in drama.^[1]

After graduating from college, George began acting in New York City, where he performed on the stage and in television commercials. His big break came when he was working as a bouncer at a New York waterfront bar and producer

His career took off after he made a 60-second TV commercial for shaving cream, where he played the young man in the "Good morning, Mr. Gray" shaving spot, and won the New York Film Festival Award for best actor in a commercial.^[17][28] During this 1962 shaving-cream commercial, George played a groom lathering up before his first honeymoon night, with a line where he said, "It's all for you." The commercial earned him over $30,000.^[19] He also appeared in roles on the television series Naked City and Bewitched.^[26] While in New York City, George played in the Lemos Greek Repertory Theater because he could speak Greek fluently.^[23]

He first appeared on the screen when he landed a role in the film In Harm's Way (1965), playing a dying sailor for 30 seconds.^[29] This gave him his first opportunity to meet and work with John Wayne, who had been his boyhood idol and who would become a lifelong friend.^[30] He first rose to prominence playing a supporting role in the Howard Hawks-directed Western film El Dorado (1966, released in 1967), also for Paramount Pictures starring both John Wayne and Robert Mitchum in the lead roles. George and Wayne became friends while shooting the film and would co-star in additional Westerns, including Chisum (1970) and The Train Robbers (1973). George had the lead in William Castle's spy-fi Project X released in 1968.

From 1966 to 1968 over the course of two seasons and 58 episodes, George played the lead role of Sergeant Sam Troy on

George first met actress Lynda Day in New York where they were doing a fashion layout; prophetically, she was modeling the bride's outfit and he was the groom.^[53] They met again later when they starred together in the independent film The Gentle Rain (1966). They would appear in supporting roles together four years later in Chisum starring John Wayne, where they fell in love.^[54] On May 15, 1970, they were married in an Episcopal ceremony in a judge's chamber in Palm Beach, Florida.^[25][55] They had two children together — a daughter, Casey and a son, Nicholas.^[56][57]

George's niece is

George died of a heart attack at age 52 in the late evening of November 28, 1983, at Westside Hospital in Los Angeles.^[60][61][56] After dinner at home with his wife, he felt sudden chest pains and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. He later went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at 10:35 p.m., over three hours after he was admitted, while under the care and observation of his cardiologist, Dr. Pearl McBroom.^[62][30]

Although several sources in the last two decades cite his Rat Patrol injuries as a contributing factor to his death, George was a frequent smoker of cigars, a heavy drinker, had known heart disease and had undergone coronary bypass surgery about five years prior to his death.^[63]

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