Younger audiences who know George Hamilton primarily as a celebrity from commercials making fun of his perpetual tan (hawking crackers with the line "I know toasted") hardly realize that the lean, self-mocking actor started his career with strong dramatic hopes. As one of the last actors signed to a long-term contract at MGM, he was groomed for stardom through a combination of crowd-pleasing fare and solid dramatic work in which he proved himself an actor of considerable promise.

The son of a Southern socialite and a touring bandleader, Hamilton moved around the country for much of his childhood before settling in Palm Beach, where he won awards for his high school acting. After graduation, he moved to Hollywood, where he was quickly snapped up by MGM. The days in which MGM churned out 30 or more movies a year were past, and there were no low budget films or shorts being produced as a training ground for the young actor. Instead, he started out with guest appearances on such television series as The Donna Reed Show and The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin before making his official film debut as a young murderer in the independent film Crime and Punishment, USA [1959] (he had appeared un-credited in two films as a child). Not only did he score solid reviews, he won a British Film Academy (BAFTA) nomination for his performance. MGM then teamed him with established stars Robert Mitchum and Eleanor Parker for the Vincente Minnelli drama Home from the Hill (1960). He and another newcomer, George Peppard, more than held their own in scenes with the more experienced players. The studio followed with lighter fare - the teen comedy Where the Boys Are (also 1960). His role as a wealthy youth who falls for independent-minded Dolores Hart during spring break was the first to point to his later image as a sun-bathed celebrity charmer. With the film's box office success, he picked up a Most Promising Newcomer Award from the Hollywood Foreign Press.

Rather than exploiting his popularity in lighter fare, however, MGM continued to stretch his talents with the role of an Italian nobleman who discovers his fiancée (Yvette Mimieux) is mentally challenged in Light in the Piazza (1962). Hamilton met the role's demands and again held his own against a more experienced star, Olivia de Havilland, who played Mimieux's protective mother. The film brought him a second BAFTA nomination. Other strong roles followed, as a troubled young actor in Two Weeks in Another Town (1962), a U.S. soldier facing the horrors of World War II in The Victors and playwright Moss Hart in Act One (both 1963). Perhaps his greatest challenge was playing alcoholic country-western legend Hank Williams in Your Cheatin' Heart (1964). Elvis Presley had been considered for the role, but the singer's widow had vetoed the casting, concerned that the film would become all about the King. Instead, Hamilton turned in an effective performance, with Williams' son, Hank Williams, Jr., providing the vocals. At that point, however, MGM was on its last legs as a major Hollywood studio. The film was shot in black and white, the last musical from MGM in that process, and vanished quickly from theatres.

By then, however, Hamilton the celebrity had begun to upstage Hamilton the actor. As early as 1964, he had played himself, albeit in an MGM musical, Looking for Love, one of the studio's failed attempts to turn singer Connie Francis into a film star and promote its few remaining contract players. Two years later he was making headlines not for his acting but as a frequent escort of Lynda Byrd Johnson, daughter of President Lyndon Johnson. That and his reputation for stylishness were quickly becoming the key elements of his public persona. Moreover, attempts to build a star image away from MGM were faltering. He starred opposite Vanessa Redgrave in a British television version of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms (1966) and played an international jewel thief in Jack of Diamonds (1967), but neither film made much of an impact in the U.S. Nor did he ever win the one role that should have been his, British secret agent James Bond, though there was a joke about his identification with the role in The Cannonball Run (1981), in which a woman mistakes Bond actor Roger Moore for Hamilton.

Hamilton finally re-branded himself as a light comedian with a self-deprecating sense of humor with his performance as Count Dracula in Love at First Bite (1979), which he co-produced. The comedy about the vampire's affair with a modern woman (Susan Saint James) was a surprise box office hit and brought its star a Saturn Award for Best Actor from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films and a Golden Globe nomination. He followed it with another hit parody, Zorro, the Gay Blade (1981). With those films, he established himself as a latter-day Cary Grant, leading to turns as wealthy, well-dressed characters on the television series Dynasty and The Bold and the Beautiful, and a nicely understated performance as a slick lawyer in The Godfather: Part III (1990).

In recent years, Hamilton has simply played himself as host of the 2003 reality show The Family, as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars and as a commercial spokesperson for everything from Nabisco Toasted Chips to Dell Computers. He even was a front-runner to replace Bob Barker as host of The Price Is Right. In 2001 he made his Broadway debut as another slick, well-dressed character, the lawyer Billy Flynn in the long-running revival of Chicago. He has returned to the show in 2002 and 2007.

In a fascinating footnote to his career, in 2009 he will be able to see himself on screen as a young man in My One and Only, a film based on the life of his mother, to be played by Renee Zellweger. The young Hamilton will be played by Logan Lerman, a child actor who appeared in 3:10 to Yuma (2007) and the 2004 TV series Jack & Bobby.

by Frank Miller