Eric Fleming

Eric Fleming, born Edward Heddy Jr. on July 4, 1925, in Santa Paula, California, was an American actor best known for playing trail boss Gil Favor in the CBS Western television series Rawhide. He was the only child of Mildred, née Anderson, and Edward Heddy. Fleming died on September 28, 1966, at age 41.

Fleming's childhood was marked by hardship. Born with a club foot, he required crutches and was frequently beaten by his father. At eight years old, he attempted to shoot his father with a gun that jammed, and he left home shortly afterward, traveling first to Los Angeles and then to Chicago, where he worked odd jobs for gangsters. At eleven, he was wounded during a gunfight involving those associates, hospitalized, and subsequently returned to his mother, who had by then divorced his father. During the Depression, Fleming left school and held various jobs before enlisting in the Merchant Marine and later joining the United States Navy in 1942. He served as a carpenter with the 88th Naval Construction Battalion, a Seabee unit, attaining the rank of petty officer second class before his discharge in 1945.

Following his military service, Fleming returned to Paramount Studios, where he had previously worked as a construction worker, grip, and carpenter. After sustaining severe facial injuries during a weightlifting bet — which required extensive plastic surgery to reconstruct his forehead, nose, and jaw — he pursued acting. He had entered acting classes at the studio in the evenings after losing a $100 bet to an actor over an audition. His stage debut came in a road company production of Happy Birthday, and he subsequently performed in Chicago and on Broadway. His Broadway career spanned 1950 to 1955 and included Portrait of a Lady, the play Stalag 17, The Tower Beyond Tragedy, the comedy My 3 Angels, and the musical Plain and Fancy. He also appeared in No Time for Sergeants during that period.

Fleming transitioned to television and film around the same time as his stage work. He relocated to Hollywood and appeared in several low-budget films, among them Fright, Curse of the Undead, and Queen of Outer Space. In 1958, standing six feet three and a half inches tall, he was cast as Gil Favor, the lead in Rawhide. The series, which aired on CBS from 1959 to 1966, depicted a cattle drive from San Antonio, Texas, to Sedalia, Missouri, set in the 1860s. Producer Charles Marquis Warren drew on an 1866 diary by trail boss George C. Duffield in shaping the character. Fleming's co-stars included Clint Eastwood, Sheb Wooley, and Paul Brinegar, and while Fleming and Eastwood alternated in carrying individual episodes, Fleming received top billing throughout. He also co-wrote two episodes of the series: "Incident of the Night on the Town" in season three and "A Woman's Place" in season four.

In the summer of 1965, during the hiatus before Rawhide's eighth season, Fleming was among several cast members dismissed by newly installed executive producer Ben Brady, who had been charged with reversing the show's declining ratings. Fleming later told TV Guide that CBS had fired him because the network was paying him a million dollars a year, though his actual salary was $220,000. Eastwood was promoted to trail boss for the final thirteen episodes before CBS canceled the series in December 1965.

After Rawhide, Fleming appeared in a supporting role as a spy in The Glass Bottom Boat, a Doris Day comedy. He also guest-starred in three episodes of the NBC Western Bonanza. In the season seven episode "Peace Officer," he played the sadistic Wes Dunn, and series creator David Dortort brought him back in the following season for a two-part story, "The Pursued," in which he starred as Mormon rancher Heber Clauson. The first installment of that two-parter aired four days after Fleming's death.

Fleming died on September 28, 1966, while on location in Peru filming High Jungle, a two-part episode of the television series Off to See the Wizard that was also intended for theatrical release in Europe. Six weeks into production, a dugout canoe carrying Fleming and co-star Nico Minardos overturned in the Huallaga River. Minardos reached safety, but Fleming was swept away by the current and drowned. His body was recovered three days later. He was survived by his fiancée, Lynne Garber. Production of the episode was halted following his death.