Equally convincing as a rugged outdoorsman or an edgy urbanite, Oscar®-winner Van Heflin (1910-1971) combined the charisma of a leading man with the skills of a fine character actor. Born Emmett Evan Heflin, Jr. in Walters, Oklahoma, he moved as a youngster to Long Beach, California, where his first sight of the ocean sparked a lifelong love affair with seafaring. Young Van worked on and off as a merchant seaman while pursuing his education at the University of Oklahoma. Legend has it that, while between voyages in 1928, the young sailor auditioned for his first Broadway play on a whim after encountering an actor at a Manhattan cocktail party.

Turning serious about acting, Heflin attended the Yale School of Drama and continued to work on Broadway and in radio. He scored his first major success playing opposite Katharine Hepburn onstage in The Philadelphia Story. His movie breakthrough came with Santa Fe Trail (1940), in which he played a radical abolitionist with the complex, multi-layered approach that became typical of his performances.

Heflin won the 1942 Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the alcoholic pal of a gangster in MGM's Johnny Eager. His most ambitious performance to date came in the title role of Tennessee Johnson (1942) as the man who succeeded Abraham Lincoln as president. Heflin interrupted his movie career to serve in Europe with the Air Force during World War II. Returning to films at war's end, he found his ideal screen partner in the equally earthy and dynamic Barbara Stanwyck in the classic noir melodrama The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946). The pair reunited for two MGM romances, B.F.'s Daughter (1948) and East Side, West Side (1949). Heflin also struck on-screen sparks with Lana Turner, his costar in Green Dolphin Street (1947) and The Three Musketeers (1948). Other memorable female co-stars opposite Heflin include Joan Crawford in the noir melodrama Possessed (1947) and Judy Garland in Presenting Lily Mars (1943).

One of Heflin's most powerful performances came in Patterns (1956), a Rod Serling drama about corporate life in America, with Heflin cast as a bright young executive torn between advancing his career and helping destroy the older man he has been brought in to replace. Heflin also starred in many Westerns; 3:10 to Yuma (1957), in which he plays a rancher trying to collect a reward for outlaw Glenn Ford, is one of his best. Heflin, who remained active in television and films until the year before his death, left instructions that his ashes be scattered on his beloved ocean.

by Roger Fristoe

* Films in bold type will air on TCM