Take a closer look at some of Hollywood's top-tier talent at the beginning of their careers.

Child Stars, Then and Now

Take a closer look at some of Hollywood&#39;s top-tier talent at the beginning of their careers.

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Handsome and smooth natured leading man who often played oily individuals, Ray Danton was born in New York and dramatically trained at Carnegie Tech. First debuted on-screen as a moody Native American in Chief Crazy Horse (1955) and regularly guest-starred in many 1950s TV shows including Playhouse 90 (1956), Wagon Train (1957), and 77 Sunset Strip (1958)...often as a gunslinger or a slippery criminal.

Danton found plenty of demand for his talents and appeared in several minor films including The Night Runner (1957), Tarawa Beachhead (1958), in which he starred with his wife, Julie Adams, and then as a serial rapist in The Beat Generation (1959). However, his most well remembered role was as the vicious prohibition gangster Jack Diamond in the superb The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960) also starring a young Warren Oates and directed by Budd Boetticher. Danton reprised his Legs Diamond role only a year later in the unrelated, and not as enjoyable Portrait of a Mobster (1961).

Cornering the market on playing shady characters, Danton then portrayed troubled actor George Raft in The George Raft Story (1961), but he was back on the side of good in 1962 playing an Allied officer at the invasion of Normandy in The Longest Day (1962). Europe then beckoned for the virile Danton, and like many other young US actors in the early 1960s, he made several films in Italy and Spain between 1964 and 1969 with a mixture of success. Danton returned to the USA in the early 1970s and appeared in several other low budget features; however, he also turned his hand to direction and his first film was the AIP production of Deathmaster (1972) starring Robert Quarry who was riding high on the success of the Count Yorga vampire films. Danton directed another couple of minor horror films before becoming involved in television and directing episodes of some of the most popular TV series of the 1970/80s including Quincy, M.E. (1976), The Incredible Hulk (1977), Magnum, P.I. (1980) and Cagney & Lacey (1981).

His final directorial work was on the TV series Vietnam War Story (1987) in 1987. Danton passed away in 1992 from kidney failure aged only 60.

(1958) Album: He had a fine baritone singing voice, which is featured on the album &quot;We Wish You A Merry Christmas&quot; along with other Warner Brothers television stars.

(1957) Unsold pilot: Made a pilot for an adventure series called &quot;Big Time&quot; about a spy whose cover was being a nightclub singer.

(1971) Unsold pilot: Made a pilot for an adventure series called &quot;Solitare&quot;. The plot revolved around a globe-trotting adventurer, living by his wits, who killed time playing solitaire.

(1962) Unsold pilot: Starred in a pilot for ABC called &quot;Entre Nous&quot;. In it, he played a retired thief living on the Riviera (any similarities to the <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm0000033/?ref_=nmwrk">Alfred Hitchcock</a> film <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/title/tt0048728/?ref_=nmwrk">To Catch a Thief (1955)</a> were purely intentional.

(1950) Stage: Appeared in &quot;Mr. Roberts&quot;, London, England.

(1953) He acted in Thomas Heggen and Joshua Logan&#39;s play, &quot;Mister Roberts,&quot; at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts with Richard Arlen, Raymond Bailey and James Franciscus in the cast.

(March 1962) He acted in Jean Anouilh&#39;s play, &quot;Becket,&quot; at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California. Lenore Shanewise was director. C. Lowell Lees was artistic director.

Other works

Ray Danton

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