Brandon de Wilde

Andre Brandon de Wilde was born on April 9, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York, into a theatrical family. His father, Frederic "Fritz" de Wilde, was an actor and Broadway production stage manager and the son of Dutch immigrants who had changed the family surname from Neitzel-de Wilde upon arriving in the United States. Fritz was a descendant of Dutch merchant Andries de Wilde, who was married to Cornelia Henrica Neitzel. De Wilde's mother, Eugenia, née Wilson, worked as a part-time stage actress. After his birth, the family relocated from Brooklyn to Baldwin, Long Island.

De Wilde made his Broadway debut at the age of seven in The Member of the Wedding, based on Carson McCullers's novel of the same name. He completed 492 performances in the production, earning a Donaldson Award for his work — the first child actor to receive that honor — and drawing praise from John Gielgud the following year. He starred in the 1952 film adaptation of the play, directed by Fred Zinnemann, for which he won a Golden Globe Award. That same year, his second Broadway appearance, in Mrs. McThing, earned him a feature on the cover of Life magazine on March 10, 1952. His Broadway career, which spanned 1950 to 1965, also included credits in Comes a Day, Clothes, and A Race of Hairy Men!

His film role as Joey Starrett in Shane (1953) brought him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, making him the youngest nominee at the time in a competitive category. He also starred in his own ABC sitcom, Jamie, which aired in 1953 and 1954 before being canceled due to a contract dispute, and made numerous radio and television appearances throughout the early 1950s.

In 1956, de Wilde appeared alongside Walter Brennan, Phil Harris, and Sidney Poitier in the Batjac production Good-bye, My Lady, adapted from James Street's novel. That same year, at age 14, he narrated recordings of Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev and The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten, and recorded a reading of Huckleberry Finn on the album The Stories of Mark Twain with his Good-bye, My Lady co-star Brennan. He shared the screen with James Stewart and Audie Murphy in the 1957 Western Night Passage, and the following year co-starred with Lee Marvin in The Missouri Traveler (1958), a coming-of-age story set in the early 1900s. At 17, he played an adolescent father in the 1959 drama Blue Denim, and guest-starred on television series including Alcoa Theatre and Wagon Train. In 1961, he appeared in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" as Hugo, a mentally impaired youth who cannot distinguish fact from fantasy; the episode was never broadcast on NBC because its finale was considered too graphic for 1960s television standards.

De Wilde appeared in All Fall Down (1962) opposite Warren Beatty, Angela Lansbury, Eva Marie Saint, and Karl Malden, and co-starred with Paul Newman, Patricia Neal, and Melvyn Douglas in Martin Ritt's Hud (1963). Though the only lead actor in Hud not to receive an Oscar nomination, he accepted the Best Supporting Actor trophy on behalf of co-star Melvyn Douglas, who was in Spain at the time. Also in 1963, he appeared in the ABC circus drama The Greatest Show on Earth, produced by Jack Palance.

In 1964, de Wilde signed a two-picture deal with Disney. He first starred in The Tenderfoot, a three-part comedy Western for Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, alongside Brian Keith. He and Keith reunited the following year for Those Calloways (1965), which also featured Walter Brennan. Also in 1965, de Wilde played PT boat officer Jere Torry in the Pacific theater World War II drama In Harm's Way, in which John Wayne portrayed his admiral father. That same year marked his final Broadway credit. After 1965, his screen work consisted largely of television guest appearances. His final Western role came in Dino De Laurentiis's 1971 spaghetti Western The Deserter, and his last screen appearance was in the 1972 action comedy Wild in the Sky.

De Wilde had also pursued a music career. He recorded harmony sessions with Gram Parsons and the International Submarine Band; guitarist John Nuese stated that de Wilde sang harmony with Parsons better than anyone except Emmylou Harris, and bassist Ian Dunlop noted de Wilde's strong desire to release a record. Parsons and Harris later co-wrote "In My Hour of Darkness," the first verse of which references the car crash that killed de Wilde.

De Wilde was married twice. His first marriage, to writer Susan M. Maw in 1963, produced a son, Jesse, before the couple divorced in 1969. He married Janice Gero in April 1972. His final stage appearance was at the Elitch Theatre in Denver in a two-week run of Butterflies Are Free, co-starring Maureen O'Sullivan and Karen Grassle, with the last performance on July 1, 1972. On July 6, 1972, while still in Colorado for that engagement, de Wilde was killed in a traffic accident in Lakewood, a suburb of Denver. The camper van he was driving left the roadway and struck a guardrail and a parked truck before rolling onto its side, pinning him in the wreckage. He was transported to St. Anthony Hospital, where he died at 7:20 p.m. from multiple injuries including a broken back, neck, and leg. He was 30 years old.