Happy Birthday, Guy Madison!

Actor, Movies, Television and Radio Voice. Guy Madison appeared in some 85 films, performed as a voice actor on the radio but his most prominent success came in a popular television series. He was born Robert Ozell Moseley in Pumpkin Center, California on January 19, 1926. In high school, he worked summers as a lifeguard and upon graduation attended Bakersfield Junior College studying animal husbandry. After two years, he worked briefly as a telephone lineman before joining the Coast Guard serving during World War II.. He never had any ambitions toward a movie career and lacked training and experience. Stationed in California and during a visit to Hollywood on leave, wearing his sailor suit, he was spotted by a talent scout while attending a Lux Radio Theatre broadcast. Recommended to David O. Selznick who was looking for an unknown to play a sailor for a cameo role in his movie Since You Went Away, he was signed as an extra. His one scene was filmed during a weekend pass and he promptly returned to duty. Movie goers noticed him and were responsible for his Hollywood career as they wrote thousands of letters praising his performance and demeanor during the brief cameo appearance. Upon completion of his military duty, Robert Moseley was signed by RKO Pictures in 1946 and began appearing in romantic comedies and dramas...Till the End of Time and Honeymoon but a few. A moniker was conceived and he became Guy Madison. However, outside of good looks, his lack of training resulted in lackluster performances. He realized his shortcomings and enhanced his abilities by studying and performing with local theatre groups which led to national prominence in 1951 in the burgeoning television industry. Madison was cast as lawman Wild Bill Hickok in the TV series, The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok. In 1979, he appeared in the entertaining ABC variety compilation special, When the West Was Fun: A Western Reunion a salute to Western series during the early years of television. Physical ailments and bad health further hampered his fading career developing emphysema from his years of smoking. The ailment claimed his life while living in retirement in Palm Springs at age 74. He won a Golden Globe Award for Best Western Star in 1953 and was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (edited version of biography) by: Donald Greyfield)

It is with vivid reflection that Guy Madison comes to mind; Guy of the legend as the inspiration for the term, "beefcake" coined by columnist Sidney Skolsky. Whether it is an accurate description of the term's origin is irrelevant. It is an accurate description of the young Guy Madison. Guy Madison as Wild Bill Hickock made his way into the minds and hearts of many a baby boomer. Many of those baby boomers knew at a very young age the nature of their sexual identity. At the very least they knew where their fantasies lay. They also knew that those fantasies were unacceptable and considered reason enough to be cast into hell fire. Wild Bill himself would certainly disapprove. Still the fantasies persisted.

It took some time, a bit of anger at the Creator for creating them that way, as living breathing anathema, then the sexual revolution, Stonewall, and, of course, maturity, which told them that the Creator made them that way, because they are part of nature.

The book written about show business manager, Henry Willson, The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson, is very much about the issue of being in the closet in the film industry and the self loathing therein. More than enough of the book is devoted to Guy Madison, an early discovery of Willson's. It should be said that Madison had two short lived marriages and did father children. The author, Robert Hofler, goes to some trouble to point out Madison's allegedly gay relationship with Rory Calhoun, no less. There is an interesting anecdote involving the two of them making a car rock back and forth.

This is not the stuff of the diclosures from KD Lang, Elton John, Ellen, Rosie or about Liberace - this is the stuff of virtually bringing one's fantasies to life, of acknowledging that those cast into homosexual hell fire would be in some very fine company indeed.

Who knows where Guy went when he passed on, but here follows some of his obituary:

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- Guy Madison, who found his niche in westerns in the 1940s and starred in the television series "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok" has died. He was 74. Mr. Madison, born Robert Ozell Moseley on Jan. 19, 1922, died Tuesday of emphysema at Desert Hospital Hospice in Palm Springs.




"We shared a lot of campfires together. It is another empty saddle, and I will really miss him," said fellow Western star and lifelong hunting companion Rory Calhoun. Mr. Madison and Mr. Calhoun were also neighbors in nearby Morongo Valley.



With his rugged but boyish looks, Mr. Madison portrayed the handsome James Butler Hickok from 1951 to 1958. It was the beginning of his work on popular series about historic frontier figures like Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and Kit Carson.

A radio version of "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok" was broadcast on the Mutual network from 1951 to 1956.

Mr. Madison had a genuine interest in western lore and was known for making bows and arrows for hunting.

Some of the actor's 85 films are: "Since You Went Away" in 1944; "Till the End of Time" in 1946; "Honeymoon" in 1947; "Bullwhip" in 1958; and "Jet Over the Atlantic" in 1960.

OK, peanut gallery, of course, there is no such thing as hell fire and if there were to be the likes of Guy Madison there, more than a few would walk through the fire to get to him.

The point of all this, aside from acknowledging Rory Calhoun's Brokebackesque statement, is that public disclosure does a lot for those who look up at the screen from inside their own sexual identity to bless and dignify that identity with that of the object of their affection.

It is good that much headway has been made in the depiction of gay characters and issues on all the screens in our lives. It is better when those who have achieved fame and fortune, not a little bit from homosexuals who support them, and who live in the real world acknowledge their kinship with them. It is a fulfilling joy to experience the existence of kindred spirits up there, so to speak. Pandering to the heterosexual sensibility in the mainstream has done nothing for the happiness and well being of homosexuals in the not so distant past.

Happiness and well being is what the world should be about: Right to Life, Right to Exist.

Strict adherence to arbitrary religious dogma has caused nothing but unhappiness, hatred and death. Just turn on the news right now and you will learn more about that.

Being human, being who we are at our best is morality enough.