Line #9 Creator/GigYoung


1	[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gig_young.jpg]]
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3	->''"Whenever you play a second lead and lose the girl, you have to make your part interesting yet not compete with the leading man. There are few great second leads in this business. It's easier to play a lead – you can do whatever you want. If I'm good it always means the leading man has been generous."''
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5	Gig Young (born Byron Elsworth Barr; November 4, 1913 – October 19, 1978) was an American actor of stage, film, and television.
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7	Born in St. Cloud, Minnesota and raised in North Carolina and Washington, D.C., he studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he was discovered (along with Creator/GeorgeReeves) by a Creator/WarnerBros talent scout while performing in a play. After getting signed to the studio he had bit parts in a number of films, in which he was either uncredited or credited as Byron Barr. In 1942, he appeared in ''The Gay Sisters'' as a character named "Gig Young", and was so well received that the studio subsequently encouraged him to adapt that as his permanent StageName.
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9	Known mainly for supporting roles, in particular for playing the RomanticFalseLead in both serious and comedic films, Young won the UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as a jaded dance-marathon emcee in the 1969 film ''Film/TheyShootHorsesDontThey''.
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11	Young was married five times, one of his wives being Creator/ElizabethMontgomery of ''Series/{{Bewitched}}'' fame. On October 19, 1978--three weeks after his fifth marriage, to a 31-year-old German woman named Kim Schmidt--police found the couple dead at home in their Manhattan apartment from gunshot wounds; it was determined that Young had shot his wife and then turned the gun on himself.
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14	!!Roles with pages on TV Tropes:
15	[[foldercontrol]]
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17	[[folder:Film roles]]
18	* ''Film/SergeantYork'' (1941) as Marching Soldier ({{uncredited\|role}})
19	* ''Film/TheTanksAreComing'' (1941) as Jim Allen [[note]]billed as Byron Barr[[/note]]
20	* ''Film/OldAcquaintance'' (1943) as Rud Kendall
21	* ''Film/EscapeMeNever'' (1947) as Caryl Dubrok
22	* ''Literature/TheWomanInWhite'' (1948) as Walter Hartright
23	* ''Film/{{The Three Musketeers\|1948}}'' (1948) as Porthos
24	* ''Film/LustForGold'' (1949) as Pete Thomas
25	* ''Film/OnlyTheValiant'' (1951) as Lt. William Holloway
26	* ''Film/{{Arena\|1953}}'' (1953) as Hob Danvers
27	* ''Film/{{Torch Song\|1953}}'' (1953) as Cliff Willard
28	* ''Film/RearWindow'' (1954) as Gunnison, Jeff's Editor (voice, uncredited)
29	* ''Film/{{Young at Heart\|1955}}'' (1955) as Alex Burke
30	* ''Film/TheDesperateHours'' (1955) as Chuck Wright
31	* ''Film/DeskSet'' (1957) as Mike Cutler
32	* ''Film/ThatTouchOfMink'' (1962) as Roger
33	* ''Film/FiveMilesToMidnight'' (1962) as David Barnes
34	* ''Film/ATicklishAffair'' (1963) as Kay Weedon
35	* ''Film/{{Strange Bedfellows\|1965}}'' (1965) as Richard Bramwell
36	* ''Film/TheyShootHorsesDontThey'' (1969) as Rocky
37	* ''Film/BringMeTheHeadOfAlfredoGarcia'' (1974) as Quill
38	* ''Film/TheKillerElite'' (1975) as Lawrence Weyburn
39	* ''Film/{{The Hindenburg\|1975}}'' (1975) as Edward Douglas
40	* ''Film/SherlockHolmesInNewYork'' (1976) as Mortimer [=McGrew=]
41	* ''Film/GameOfDeath'' (1978) as Jim Marshall
42	[[/folder]]
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44	[[folder:Television roles]]
45	* ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone\|1959}}'' ([[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E5WalkingDistance 1 episode]], 1959) as Martin Sloan
46	* ''[[Series/AlfredHitchcockPresents The Alfred Hitchcock Hour]]'' (1 episode, 1962) as Duke Marsden
47	* ''Series/KraftSuspenseTheatre'' (1 episode, 1963) as Hugo Myrich
48	* ''Series/McCloud'' (1 episode, 1976) as Jack Hefferman
49	[[/folder]]
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51	----
52	!!Tropes in Young's career:
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54	* TheOtherMarty: He was, famously, the original choice to play The Waco Kid in ''Film/BlazingSaddles''. However, Young by this time in his life had a severe case of alcoholism. When filming his first scene, where The Waco Kid is hanging upside down in a jail cell when he meets Sheriff Bart, Young was violently ill. He was immediately fired and Creator/GeneWilder took the part.
55	* RomanticFalseLead: He was rather infamous for getting the role of "the guy who dates the female lead for a while just to lose her to the male lead" ''a lot''. Here are only a few examples:
56	** In ''Escape Me Never'', he loses Creator/EleanorParker to Creator/ErrolFlynn.
57	** In ''Film/OnlyTheValiant'', he loses Barbara Payton to Creator/GregoryPeck. (Bonus points for "losing" here via getting killed by Apache.)
58	** In ''The Girl Who Had Everything'', he loses a young Creator/ElizabethTaylor to Creator/FernandoLamas.
59	** In ''Film/{{Torch Song\|1953}}'', he loses Creator/JoanCrawford to Creator/MichaelWilding.
60	** In ''Film/{{Young at Heart\|1955}}'', he loses Creator/DorisDay to Creator/FrankSinatra.
61	** In ''Film/DeskSet'', he loses Creator/KatharineHepburn to Creator/SpencerTracy.
62	** ''Film/FiveMilesToMidnight'' offers a subversion, in which he courts Creator/SophiaLoren only to discover that she is married to Creator/AnthonyPerkins. [[spoiler:It ends up going nowhere as Loren ends up running over the blackmailing Perkins.]]

Context Creator / GigYoung