Those who were around when our star of the month for May was seen in his first two films (1941's Virginia with Fred MacMurray and Madeleine Carroll, and the same year's Bahama Passage, again with the gorgeous Ms. Carroll) would most likely have given a guffaw heard round the globe if they were told that 74 years later, in 2015, Sterling Hayden would be saluted as an actor. (For the record, he was billed as "Stirling" Hayden in that first year of his film career.)

Back in '41, with no acting experience and no interest on his part in being an actor, he was stiff as a board in front of the cameras, giving no competition to any of the other colts representing young Hollywood at the time. He was, however, a huge success in spite of himself: Hayden was illegally handsome, tall as a tree (6 feet, 5 inches) and, thanks to a ruggedness attained from having dropped out of high school at age 17 to work 24/7 on boats as a dedicated sailor-for-hire, he was, at age 24, such an Adonis that Paramount studios promoted him at that point as "the most beautiful man in the movies," a tag which thoroughly embarrassed and angered Hayden.

Unpredictable he also was, briefly marrying Ms. Carroll, the sophisticated British beauty who was 10 years Hayden's senior and Hitchcock's first icy blonde beauty in films. Meanwhile, Hayden couldn't get out of the film business fast enough to suit himself. Great timing for him: along came a war to make that happen. World War II put him in his element. He became a commando with the COI, a forerunner of the OSS and CIA; later he joined the Marines, then became a gun-runner through various German blockades. After the war, he did return to acting mainly because film salaries were a great help in buying the sailing vessels he wanted to own.

At this point he had only those two 1941 Adonis films to his credit, and the hoopla was over for him in Hollywood. His face had aged, his fans had long since moved on to new favorites, but again luck was on his side. Some of the best directors in Hollywood were now clearly seeing there was much more to Sterling Hayden than that pretty boy exterior which had earlier defined him. John Huston hired him for The Asphalt Jungle, Nicholas Ray for Johnny Guitar, Stanley Kubrick for The Killing and Dr. Strangelove, and Robert Altman for The Long Goodbye, all of which we'll be showing in our Hayden salute.

Post-war, one glitch came via a much publicized run-in with the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in Washington D.C.; Hayden, called to testify, never denied that Communism had once been attractive to him. To the surprise of many, Hayden included, that confession had no adverse affect on future offers for movie work. When he wasn't toiling in films, he often spent his time in a houseboat he owned, parked in the middle of Paris on the River Seine, a dandy place to write what became a brilliant autobiography, 1963's Wanderer and a later novel, also highly praised, titled Voyager.

Do join us Wednesdays in May for 21 films with the man who was one of the most interesting--and certainly the most reluctant--actor in Hollywood's fascinating past.

by Robert Osborne