Eric Fleming

Eric Fleming
Fleming in 1961
Born	Edward Heddy, Jr. (1925-07-04)July 4, 1925 Santa Paula, California, U.S.
Died	September 28, 1966(1966-09-28) (aged 41) Tingo María, Peru
Cause of death	Drowned
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1944–1966
Partner(s)	Lynne Garber

Eric Fleming (born Edward Heddy, Jr.; July 4, 1925 – September 28, 1966) was an American actor, known primarily for his role as Gil Favor in the long-running CBS television series Rawhide.

Fleming was born in Santa Paula, California, an only child with an unhappy childhood. Born with a club foot, he needed crutches to get around and was often severely beaten by his father. At the age of eight, he attempted to kill his father with a gun, which jammed. He ran away from home shortly after, fleeing to Los Angeles and then Chicago, where he lived roughly and associated with gangsters, doing odd jobs for them to make money. At the age of 11, after being wounded in a gunfight between some gangsters and hospitalized, he was returned home to his mother, who had recently divorced. During the years of the Depression, he dropped out of school and worked at various jobs until he joined the Merchant Marine, before joining the United States Navy in 1942 for World War II. He served as a Seabee in a naval construction battalion. He received severe facial injuries during a bet in which he was attempting to lift a 200-pound (91 kg) weight and had to undergo extensive plastic surgery to reconstruct his forehead, nose, and jaw. Before this, Fleming had always thought himself "ugly" and considered the incident a "wonderful balance of values." After his facial reconstruction, he returned to Paramount Studios, where he had been working as a construction worker, grip, and carpenter. He made a bet with an actor that he could do a better audition. He lost the bet and it cost him $100 and "I lost a lot of pride too, which hurt but the $100 hurt worse." So upon deciding acting cost him $100, acting would get it back, he entered acting classes at the studio in the evenings. He appeared on stage in Chicago and in a number of successful Broadway plays, including the musical Plain and Fancy. He began acting in television shows about the same time. Fleming then moved to Hollywood and starred in several low-budget films, including Fright, Curse of the Undead, and the cult classic Queen of Outer Space, with co-star Zsa Zsa Gabor.