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40 Insights into the Lives of Famous War Veterans

Khalid Elhassan July 13, 2019 26 min

29. Lee Marvin looked and acted like a badass, because he’d been one in real life

Lee Marvin in ‘The Dirty Dozen’. Pintrest

Lee Marvin is best known for his breakout performance in the TV series M Squad, and for his starring roles in the Hollywood blockbusters Hell in the Pacific, The Dirty Dozen, and the Western comedy Cat Ballou, which earned him an Oscar for Best Actor in 1965. Before that, he had been a front line WWII US Marine. Born in New York City, Marvin was a problem child who went on to become a problematic teenage delinquent. He liked hunting and drinking, often both at the same time, and kept getting expelled from various schools for trespasses ranging from smoking to throwing other students out of second story windows.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.