Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin was a prolific actor who appeared in roughly 70 films between 1951 and 1986. He won an Oscar for Best Actor in 1965, for his role in the Western comedy Cat Ballou, but he is probably better known for his starring roles in The Dirty Dozen and Hell in the Pacific, as well as the NBC television series M Squad.
Born in New York City in 1924, Lee Marvin was a problem child and teenage delinquent, who liked hunting and drinking, sometimes both simultaneously, and was expelled from numerous schools for misconduct ranging from smoking cigarettes to throwing schoolmates out of second-story windows.
He eventually dropped out of high school to join the Marines during World War II and spent a few years storming beaches in the Pacific. He was promoted to corporal, before getting busted back down to private for misconduct. He was seriously injured in the Battle of Saipan, first getting hit by machine-gun fire, then by a sniper shooting his foot. It took Marvin a year to recover from his wounds, during which time he seems to have done some self-reflection. He came out of the war a calmer and less wild young man.
After he was discharged, Lee Marvin drifted, before getting a job as a plumber’s assistant. While repairing some pipes in a theater, an actor got sick, and Marvin was recruited to step into his role, which fit his personality – a big and boisterous drunk. He took to acting like a fish to water, and after a few years in off-Broadway productions, followed by a small role in a Broadway piece, he moved to Hollywood in 1950.
In Hollywood, Lee Marvin got started with bit parts in war movies, where his real-life combat experience lent authenticity to his acting, and made him a sought after consultant by directors and actors seeking to get a feel for authentic infantry behavior.
Throughout his career, Lee Marvin excelled most in roughneck roles, mainly because he actually was a roughneck in real life, with a violent streak that made his malevolent and tough-guy characters ring true. Lee Marvin died in 1987, aged 63. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Section 7A, Lot 176.
