Eric Fleming

Age: 41 (passed away Sep. 28th, 1966)
Height: 6'

Birth Place: Santa Paula, California, USA
Born: Jul. 4th, 1925

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Eric Fleming's Main TV Roles

Show	Character(s)
Rawhide	Gil Favor

NOTE: Complete List of Works can be found at IMDB

BIOGRAPHY:

At the age of eight, he hopped a freight train to Chicago to escape an abusive father. Following hospitalization for gang fight injuries, he was returned to California where he lived with his mother and worked at Paramount as a laborer. Fleming joined the Merchant Marine, served in the Pacific in WW II, and was a Master Carpenter in the U.S. Navy Seabees. From 1946-1957, he appeared on stage in Chicago and New York with featured roles in numerous plays on Broadway including "My Three Angels," "Stalag 17," and "No Time For Sergeants." Fleming's television career began in the early 1950's with live performances on "Hallmark Summer Theatre," "The Web," "Suspense," "Kraft Television Theatre," and many other dramatic series. In 1954, he starred in Paramount's "Conquest of Space," followed by "Queen of Outer Space" for Allied Artists. In 1958, Fleming became the star of CBS-TV's long-running western "Rawhide" as trail boss Gil Favor. He remained with the top-rated show for seven of its eight seasons and planned to retire to Hawaii where he had purchased a ranch. He filmed "The Glass Bottom Boat" in 1965 and contracted with MGM-TV to film the two-part adventure series "High Jungle" in Peru. During the shooting of location shots on the Huallaga River on September 28, 1966, Fleming dove from a dug-out canoe after paddling it beyond the rapids. His body was lost in the turbulent water and was not recovered until three days later.

TRIVIA:

Drowned while filming a scene in Peru at age 41.
Fleming was unmarried and had no children. He was to have married long-time companion Lynne Garber within two days of his death.
Fleming co-wrote two episodes of _"Rawhide" (1959)_ (qv) with 'Chris Miller (XVI)' (qv): "A Woman's Place" and "Incident of a Night on the Town". He appeared in three episodes of _"Bonanza" (1959)_ (qv) following his departure from "Rawhide".
During Fleming's enlistment in the Seabees in 1942, his face was shattered when a 200-pound block of steel slipped from a hoist. A long convalescence and four plastic surgical procedures created the face familiar to _"Rawhide" (1959)_ (qv) viewers.

Eric Fleming Photos

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