Ioan Gruffudd

He has also starred in 102 Dalmatians, ITV's adaptation of The Forsyte Saga, Black Hawk Down, and King Arthur. Hunter's two previous marriages included actress Barbara Rush in the early 1950s. Next, he played Pip in the BBC production of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. He died the following day from his injuries. Forester novels. In May 1969, shortly after marrying actress Emily McLaughlin, he suffered a cerebrovascular accident while at home, causing a fall and a skull fracture. He later got his best-known role as Horatio Hornblower in the ITV production of the C.S. With the demise of the studio contract system in the early 1960s and the out-sourcing of much feature production, Hunter like many other leading men of the 1950s had to find work in B-pictures produced in Europe, Hong Kong, and Mexico, with the occasional television guest part in Hollywood.

After playing Oscar Wilde's gay lover in Wilde in 1997, he got his first international role as Fifth Officer Lowe in Titanic. But Hunter was soon filming the pilot for yet another NBC series, the espionage thriller Journey Into Fear, which the network failed to pick up and a motion picture called Brainstorm (1965). His won his first major English language role a few years later in the 1996 TV remake of Poldark. Although Temple Houston did not survive its first season, NBC offered him the lead role of Captain Christopher Pike in the pilot episode (The Cage) of a new science fiction series, Star Trek. His pensive take on the role was in contrast to the more idiosyncratic style of William Shatner, who took the part after Hunter, deciding to concentrate on motion pictures, declined to film a second Star Trek pilot requested by NBC in 1965. Aged 18 he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). that included starring as a circuit-riding Texas lawyer in the NBC series Temple Houston (1963-64), which Hunter's production company co-produced. Gruffudd started his acting career at the age of 14 in the Welsh soap opera Pobol y Cwm (People of the Valley). Having guest starred on television dramas since the mid-1950s, Hunter was now offered a two-year contract by Warner Bros.

He has two siblings – a brother, Alun, who is two years younger and a sister, Siwan, who is seven years younger than him. Among an all-star cast in the World War II battle epic The Longest Day (1962), he provided the climactic heroic act of breaching the defense wall atop Normandy's Omaha Beach. Ioan Gruffudd (pronounced YO-an GRIFF-ith) is a Welsh actor, born in Cardiff, Wales, UK on 6 October 1973. His parents, Peter and Gillian Gruffudd, were teachers. Ford also recommended Hunter to director Nicholas Ray for the role of Jesus in the biblical King of Kings (1961), a difficult part met by critical reaction that ranged from praise to ridicule. A loan-out to co-star with John Wayne in the title roles of the now-classic western The Searchers (1956) began the first of three pictures he made with director John Ford, followed by The Last Hurrah (1958) and Sergeant Rutledge (1960). Hunter's handsome looks and gentle manner recalled two earlier Fox stars, Tyrone Power and the young Henry Fonda.

He made his Hollywood debut in Fourteen Hours (1951), had star billing by Red Skies of Montana (1952), and first billing in Sailor of the King (1953). In 1950, while a graduate student in radio at the University of California, Los Angeles and appearing in a college play, he was spotted by talent scouts and offered a two-year motion picture contract by 20th Century Fox that was eventually extended to 1959. He served stateside in the United States Navy in World War II, then studied drama at Northwestern University. He was born Henry Herman McKinnies, Jr. in New Orleans, Louisiana, and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he began acting in local theater and radio in his early teens.

Jeffrey Hunter (November 25, 1926 - May 27, 1969) was a film and television actor.