George Hamilton biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Actor. Born August 12, 1939, in Memphis, Tennessee. Hamilton was the first child born to Ann and George Hamilton Sr., who was a touring society bandleader. In order to accommodate George Sr., the family moved frequently, residing in Arkansas, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, and Palm Beach. Hamilton attended Palm Beach High School, where he developed an affinity for drama.

After his graduation from high school, he landed his first lead role in 1959’s Crime and Punishment. Although his performance was considered wooden, his chiseled features and movie star good looks won the attention of studio executives. Hamilton was offered a steady stream of roles, and in the 1960s, he prospered as an actor opposite Hollywood's most sought after actresses. During this period, he starred in over a dozen films including 1961's By Love Possessed (with Lana Turner) and 1962's Light in the Piazza (with Olivia de Havilland).

Scandal

However, in 1966, personal obstacles put a damper on his professional career. Hamilton's courtship of Lynda Bird Johnson (President Johnson's daughter) was widely publicized, and eventually erupted into a tabloid scandal. As the scandal progressed, fewer and fewer roles came his way. Hamilton gave in to the pressures of the industry and reluctantly accepted his first television role as the trendy Duncan Carlyle in the series The Survivors (1969).

In 1979, Hamilton made a comeback to the big screen with his appearance as Count Dracula in the horror spoof Love at First Bite. In 1981's Zorro, the Gay Blade he played the title role. For one season in 1985, Hamilton enjoyed a brief stint on the prime time series Dynasty, where he played a ruthless movie producer. Five years later, director Francis Ford Coppola cast Hamilton as Al Pacino’s high-profile lawyer in The Godfather, Part III (1990).

Other Notable Roles

In the early ‘90s, the struggling actor maintained his affluent lifestyle by launching a line of skin products that were sold via the QVC network. In 1995, he partnered with his former wife Alana to introduce their own short-lived talk show, The George and Alana Show. Hamilton has also enjoyed frequent appearances on the morning show Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee, where he served as temporary co-host during Philbin’s absence.

Most recently he appeared as a financier in A&E's four-hour miniseries P.T. Barnum (1999). Based on the life of the founder of the famed circus, the series premiered in October of 1999 and featured Beau Bridges in the title role.

Throughout his career (which includes over 80 movie and television shows), Hamilton came to be known as the perpetually tanned leading man of the big and small screen. In Hamilton’s most recent project, he collaborated with Merv Griffin to produce an autobiographical film that focuses on his childhood. He is also set to release the film Off Key (2001), which pairs Hamilton with Danny Aiello and Joe Mantegna as a trio of opera singers who are reunited by a wedding 10 years after their own stormy breakup.

In the mid-1970s Hamilton divorced his first wife Alana (she later married musician Rod Stewart). Hamilton has one son by his first marriage, Ashley, who is best known for his marriages to model Angie Everhart and actress Shannen Doherty.

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