Funny how one single photo can send you down a rabbit hole and lead to all sorts of information, trivia and visual interest. This happened to me very recently regarding the subject of today's post. It wasn't the photo I have as the cover for this post. I just thought that one helped put the title across nicely. (And I didn't want said photo to be the one that shows up when the post is listed.) The man above is someone I really had no knowledge of previously. His name is Tony Young. (If the gal looks familiar, she's Jean Hale, who popped up in quite a few camp classics in the mid-1960s such as The Oscar, 1967, In Like Flynt, 1967, and the TV series Batman.)
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This is the photo that launched my trip... I saw it on eBay while researching something else. It's of Dan Duryea and Young in the movie Taggart (1964) and the reason it caught my eye ought to be pretty clear.
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The son of successful radio-turned-movie actor Carleton G Young (known best for "The Adventures of Ellery Queen" and "The Whisperer"), Tony was born in New York City in 1937, but by 1944 was living in Tinseltown thanks to his father's relocation there for movie work. His father forbid him to pursue a screen career until he'd received an education.
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This the young man did first via a stint in the US Air Force (learning various skills via the Armed Forces Network) followed by classes at Los Angeles City College. Still, the biz was beckoning and by 1959 - age 22 - he was attending drama school and earning bit parts on shows like The Alaskans, Lawman, Maverick and Bourbon Street Beat. Next came small film parts in Walk Like a Dragon (1960), starring Jack Lord, and The Marriage-Go-Round (1961), a Susan Hayward-James Mason comedy. Young was already married in 1958 to a young model and aspiring actress. Connie Mason, in the wake of their 1962 divorce, became a Playboy centerfold - Playmate of the Month for June 1963!
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Amid parts on Laramie, The Deputy and Bronco, dark-featured Young did as virtually all of his peers were coerced to do by playing Native Americans with names like Johnny Brassbuttons or Yellow Knife. (He's seen here on Cheyenne.)
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Possessing a cocksure air and with a wide-set jaw (not unlike Charles Bronson or James Coburn, two men who found great success with such) and a very low, resonant voice, it wasn't long before all that toiling on the countless TV westerns of the 1950s and '60s paid off.
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In 1961, he was granted his very own mid-season replacement western series Gunslinger. While the show made little impact against My Three Sons/The Untouchables and The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show, it won the hearts of many teenage girls who fell hard for the stoic young man with the deep voice. Twelve episodes were produced and aired, but the series was not picked up for the following season.
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Undeterred, he proceeded to roles on 77 Sunset Strip and Death Valley Days. In 1964, he was granted the leading role in a western movie called He Rides Tall
(I'll bet...!) The western costarred Dan Duryea as a cold-hearted bad
guy. In this, Young was also cast opposite his second wife (married in
1962), Madlyn Rhue. |
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The Jewish Rhue practiced Catholicism during this period. (I feel like that may be the back of Dick Sargent's head in the first photo?)
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Young's only child, daughter Julie, came from this union. Young and Rhue would appear on 77 Sunset Strip together and later on The Virginian, though they divorced in 1970.
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The same year as He Rides Tall, Young made the western Taggart, which utilized Duryea again as an antagonist. The stern, "underplayed" Young made a capable if not exactly electrifying leading man. But as you no doubt guessed. It was really his pistol-packin' pants that created the most stir and which inspired this post.
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It seems only natural that the costumer appeared to take inspiration from Bonanza's Michael Landon (another show-er!) when selecting Young's look for this movie. The still shot from eBay which led me to look the film up wasn't even framed the same way in the film proper (as is often the case with publicity stills), but - trust me - there was plenty to see throughout. Should you wish to try Taggart out, this is the link to it in a beautiful transfer. (And now I want to see what's up in his other 1964 western, too!)
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Though neither of those minor westerns led to anything of note, Young continued to work steadily. He showed up on Bonanza, did a few eps of The Iron Horse and then appeared on Star Trek, in a typically offbeat sci-fi get-up.
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His episode was called "Elaan of Troyius" - a bastardization of the Helen of Troy story, with France Nuyen in the title role. Fans of the show will recall that Young's wife Rhue also appeared on Trek as a key guest opposite Ricardo Montalban as Khan.
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Following guest spots on It Takes a Thief, Love, American Style and The Virginian, along with parts in movies like Charro! (1969) with Elvis Presley and A Man Called Sledge (1970) featuring James Garner, Young shifted gears a bit. He took part in the revenge flick Chrome and Hot Leather (1971) as a Green Beret hunting down bikers who've killed his fiancee.
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Seen here at a screening for Leather are the movie's producer Wes Bishop (embracing Young) and the director Lee Frost. Young soon became a favorite of theirs, appearing in a variety of entertainingly gritty and sleazy drive-in style movies.
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One of these, The Bert Convy Story (I'm teasing! The film was 1973's Superchick!) had Young as one of three gentlemen who are being juggled by Joyce Jillson. He's seen shirtless, about to join her in the sack, and on the beach in an abbreviated pair of trunks. (I actually prefer his overall look here than I do his younger years.)
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1974 brought the rough and tumble exploitation flick Policewomen. (The movie was about only one policewoman, but the title was altered to avoid confusion with Angie Dickinson's TV series Police Woman, which was then on the air.) During this period he was also popping up on Mannix, Medical Center, Barnaby Jones, among other shows, and the occasional movie such as The Outfit (1973) with Robert Duvall.
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This promotional pic is better than the previous one. If the gal starring in this seems familiar, you may recall her as I did from her guest-starring role on The Golden Girls. Sondra Currie played a red-haired lady who becomes engaged to Blanche's Big Daddy, enraging her future daughter-in-law ("Maybe we oughtta get her a boostah seat!") In 1976, Young wed Currie, his third and final wife, and they divorced a decade later.
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Many more TV roles of varying size and scope were to follow. You and I likely saw him time and again and took little notice. He was on S.W.A.T., The Rookies, Starsky and Hutch, Fantasy Island, The Fall Guy and, as seen here, Knight Rider. He continued in this vein until 1993 when he retired. Young's father Carleton had died in 1971 of cancer at age 64. Young himself died of lung cancer in 2002... at age 64.
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We hope you enjoyed this closer look at an actor who spent more than 30 years on screen, yet who remains lesser-known among TV and moviegoers.
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I think that wraps it up!
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8 comments:
Wow! I'd never heard of Tony Young before, despite all those TV and movie credits over a long period of time. Admittedly, a lot of the earlier ones were while I was really too young to notice (or remember), while the later ones were largely outside my TV viewing habits.
While I did see a lot of low-budget films at the drive-in in double-to-quadruple features in the '70s, the only title here I even recognize is CHROME AND HOT LEATHER. And while I know I saw at least a couple of biker flicks starring William Smith-- who I have a thing for-- I'm not really sure if I actually saw this one. There were several "Vietnam vets and bikers" movies made around this time, almost even a brief genre.
(I definitely *at least* saw the trailer for this one, though-- which featured the memorable death scene of Young's pretty blonde fiancee. And while checking this out, I learned that she was played by *Cheryl Ladd* in an early bit role.)
In fact, the only one of Tony Young's appearances that I can say for certain I saw was that ST episode, but I don't recall him. Even those ridiculous costumes didn't ring a bell, until you posted a framegrab with France Nuyen and the title-- which is pretty much all I remember of this episode.
And that's really surprising, because I normally would've checked credits and made note of a guy who looked like this. So it's nice to discover someone that slipped under my radar, however belatedly!
One other note: director Lee Frost began and ended his film career with early softcore exploitation flicks and later hardcore features, but he had a midpoint in the early '70s where he was turning out drive-in fodder with Wes Bishop like the ones he did with Tony Young-- and the "bad movie" classic THE THING WITH TWO HEADS (1972) with racist Ray Milland's head grafted onto Rosey Grier's neck!
In an ironic twist, some of Frost's early softcore films were made with the prolific exploitation producer David F. Friedman, who gained notoriety for two early "gore" horror films, BLOOD FEAST (1963) and TWO THOUSAND MANIACS! (1964)-- which starred Tony Young's ex-wife Connie Mason!
Thanks for following the lead from that eye-popping bulge shot from TAGGART, and coming up with this career profile of a hunky actor I never knew existed!
Love this blog, Poseidon-- and thanks again for all you do! Love to all, and be safe and well, everyone!
He's a cutie, and agree on him looking hotter later in life. I think there is a special place on this site for western pants. I am sure I saw him in many of those tv shows as I watched them all. The exploitation movies I caught later and saw a few of the ones mentioned here. I always found them depressing but enjoyed the skin shown. "Nepo baby" is such a derogatory term but so many actors followed their parents into show business and it's been going on a long time obviously. Thanks for this post-1000 post
I just want to go back and clarify a point for anybody who isn't familiar with the movie:
In Lee Frost's THE THING WITH TWO HEADS, Ray Milland plays a dying scientist with a rapidly failing body who's developed a life-saving two-stage technique for head transplants-- which entails transplanting a second head onto a living donor's neck, then after the transplant stabilizes, removing the donor's head.
The script establishes that the Milland character is a racist (he immediately fires a new assistant surgeon when he turns out to be Black) who's shocked when he wakes up after the operation and finds that the death row volunteer whose body he now shares is a large Black man-- played by football great-turned-actor Rosey Grier-- who intends to take advantage of the situation to prove his innocence.
Since this movie is somewhat obscure these days outside of "bad movie" fandom, I just wanted to be *absolutely clear* that I wasn't saying that actor Ray Milland was known to be a racist in real life!
hsc, if YOU'VE never heard of Tony Young, then that's something....! (By the way, the presence of William Smith is usually enough to get me to watch something, too. Especially anything in the 1960s or '70s.) For whatever reason, I am always getting "The Thing with Two Heads" confused with "The Amazing 2-Headed Transplant!" The way things like this were handled back in the day.... just screamingly funny! (And I wouldn't have it any other way.) I fully understood what you meant in your first comment, but since we live in world of people primed, locked and loaded, and on high-alert, to be offended by, well, anything, I get why you felt the need to clarify. Thanks!
Gingerguy, it's funny. how tastes can shift. I had never been into biker flicks at all, but when I saw "The Born Losers" in which two of them shared a pretty eye-popping kiss, somehow I changed my tune! LOL If I'm going to sit through one, I want it gritty. So annoying when the poster looks amazing and then the movie is dully benign.... ;-) For those who wanna see pics of the moment I'm referring to:
https://neptsdepths.blogspot.com/2013/12/what-ever-happened-to-jane-baby.html
New one to me. There were so many handsome actors of that general type doing westerns, you really needed that bit extra to stand out. (No, I don’t mean THAT way!). Guess he didn’t quite have it, but still had a fine career as one of those “where have I seen him before?” actors.
THE BORN LOSERS (1967, reissued 1974) is yet again one of those films I'm not sure whether I actually saw, because there was also another biker film around that time, THE LOSERS (1970), starring William Smith! (And as much as I read about films of all sorts, a *half-century* later it's frequently hard to recall whether I saw a film once, just saw the trailer, or just read a lengthy review!)
One interesting note about Jeremy Slate: according to an interview he gave, after his marriage to Tammy Grimes ended in divorce, he became involved with Sally Binford, who was active in the "sexual freedom" movement. Their adventures in the "swingers" community involved him dabbling in same -sex activity, so I guess that French-kiss scene was just a warmup!
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And yeah, THE INCREDIBLE 2-HEADED TRANSPLANT (1971) frequently gets confused with the "other one"-- which was also released by American-International Pictures one year later!
The "first one's" pretty much just a cheaper version of the same movie, minus the "social relevance" (actually, "blaxploitation") elements. This one's so cheap that star Bruce Dern says he was stiffed by the producers and was never paid!
He's new to me, also, but he's sort of Generic Handsome Man. That chest in that B&W shot is impressive, but there's nothing really unique looking about him, including his name. I'm sure I've seen him on "Starsky and Hutch" because I loved that show. (It was the first thing that made me realize I might not be like other boys.) Still, always entertaining write up!
Dan, I thought the same thing. Almost assembly-line qualities for being a TV leading man, but not quite that special something to really get under viewers' skin and make them want to see more of him. (As it happens, nontraditional-looking cowpokes like Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood were among the ones to really break out and rise to the top!) At least he did get to work steadily for a long while.
hsc, I have "Losers" on DVD and Tom Laughlin provided a commentary track wherein he recalled how taken aback Slate was with the impromptu lip-lock. But maybe it wasn't so bad after all! LOL I can only ever think of the cigar-breath on them during that sequence. Ha ha! Reportedly it was a thing for some biker groups back in the day to kiss one another publicly, knowing that it would shock and unsettle the general populace they were trying to intimidate. Many of those people had probably never witnessed such a thing at that time. Thanks!
Forever1267, you echo the same feelings that several of us have had about him. Funny about the name. Tony Young sounds so streamlined and credit-ready, though it was his *actual* name while people like Issur Danielovitch had to change it up, in that case, to Kirk Douglas! Thank you.
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