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Is Roger McGrath. McGrath is the author of Gunfighters, High Women, and Vigilantes. You hear him and see him on the History Channel. He's a regular contributor to Now American Stories. Here's McGrath.
Sergeant Hayden appeared in 59 movies, often as leading man. and made another 18 appearances in various television productions. At six foot five, with a large frame and a head of blonde hair, he was nicknamed the Viking. His movie career began in 1941 and didn't end until 1982. Despite all his fine work earlier in his career, he's probably best remembered for his role as General Jack Ripper in Doctor Strangelove.
A satire ridiculing the Cold War conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. Do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war? Uh no, I didn't think I knew it was that, yeah. He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that Fifty years ago.
He might have been right. But today War is too important to be left to politicians. I can no longer sit back and allow. Communist infiltration. Communist indoctrination.
Communist subversion. And the International Communist Conspiracy. To sap and impurify All of our precious bodily fluids. Mm-hmm. Little remembered about Sterling Hayden.
Is his World War II service as a Marine officer attached to the Office of Strategic Services? The OSS. Sterling Hayden is born in 1916. To George and Francis Walter in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. Young Sterling lives a typical boy's life in that era.
although he's more mischievous than most boys and occasionally finds himself in trouble. When he's nine years old, he fires a slingshot at a neighbor. Greatly upset by Sterling's behavior, his father whips him, but but while doing so, collapses from a stroke. Three months later, his father dies. Sterling blames himself and mourns the loss of his father for months.
Sterling's mother finds employment at Good Housekeeping magazine. and was able to support herself and her son. She later marries James Hayden. and her new husband adopts Sterling. who now becomes Sterling Walter Hayden.
When the Great Depression hits, the Hayden family falls on hard times and moves often. The teenage sterling is often absent. From the various schools he attends. And after the tenth grade, he drops out permanently. While searching for a job on the Boston wharves, he learns that the schooner Puritan is hiring crew for a voyage to California.
Sterling signs on as a ship's boy at ten dollars a month. He's excited to have landed the job and is off to sea at sixteen years old. The young lad takes to life at sea with ease, and during the next four years sails on schooners and trawlers. moving up through the ranks from ship's boy to first mate. As first mate, He ships aboard the schooner Yankee.
which takes him on a round the world voyage. In 1938, At the age of twenty two, Sterling Hayden is given his first command of a ship. the brig Florence C. Robinson, in port at Gloucester, Massachusetts. The ship was sold to a copper trader in Tahiti.
and it's Hayden's job to sail it there. It's a bit of a lark, and he assembles a crew of experienced sailors, but others who are less sailor and more adventurer. Of the eleven on board, Aden is the youngest at twenty two. And Lawrence O'Toole, an artist and writer, the oldest at 30. Three days out of Gloucester, young Captain Aiden finds himself in a hurricane with winds of 100 miles per hour and waves of 40 feet.
it's a supreme test for all aboard, especially Hayden. He guides the wooden ship through the fierce storm, but Flossie, his nickname for Florence C. Robinson, is damaged. and Hayden puts in at Jamaica for repairs. From Jamaica they sailed to Panama and passed through the canal.
picking up a parrot who can dock a blue streak along the way. They next put in at the Glapiscus Islands. Where they are surprised to find a small colony of Americans, Norwegians, and Germans among the larger population, Ecuadorans. From the Galapagos Islands, it's thousands of miles and several weeks of open sea to Tahiti. He navigates by shooting the stars with his sextant.
The horizon seems endless, and the night sky is stunning. When word reaches Boston, that Florence C. Robinson arrived safely in Tahiti after a 7,700 mile voyage. The Boston Herald said, These are not boys, they are young men. They're young men made of the stuff that makes America great.
They are doers of constructive deeds. Their assignment was to deliver the bird to Tahiti. They delivered the brig to Tahiti. Once back in the United States, Hayden addresses the Adventurers Club in New York City. And then heads up to Massachusetts, where he participates in an annual sailing contest.
the International Fisherman's Race in the spring of 1940. A photo is snapped of the handsome 6'5 and 220 pound Hayden. with his blonde hair tousled by the wind. The photo goes on the cover of a magazine. An agent with Paramount Pictures sees it and immediately arranges for Hayden to come out to Hollywood for a screen test.
Hayden later says, I was completely lost, ignorant, nervous. But the next thing I knew, Paramount made me a seven-year contract. beginning at $250 a week, which was astronomical. I got my lovely old mother and bought a car and we drove to California. I was so lost that I didn't even think to analyze it.
I said, this is nuts, but damn. It's pleasant. I had only one plan in mind, to get $5,000. I knew where there was a schooner, and then I'd haul ass. Bear Mount Promotes.
Sterling. as the beautiful blonde Viking god. He's in his first movie, titled Simply Virginia, in 1941. The movie stars Madeleine Carroll and Fred McMurray But Hayden virtually shares the male lead with Mac Murray. In a second movie in 1941, Bahama Passage, Hayden is the male lead.
The female lead again is Madeleine Carroll. Yeah, my father can do anything. I only hope I can be half the man he is. Hayden becomes one of Hollywood's most talked-about and successful young stars, and several movies are waiting for him in 1942.
However, in the middle of the year, In a sneak attack, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and America is suddenly in war. Hayden quits Hollywood and his wife as the beautiful blonde Viking god. Enlist in the Marine Corps. He declares I don't want to go on imitating men. And that's all there is to it.
Ibsen said that good men do nothing. is the chief danger of our time. Aiden's performance in boot camp at Paris Island is outstanding. And together with years of experience on the high seas, which include Earning his master's certificate, Me need a good captain of ship. and sailing around the world.
The Corps now sends Hayden to officer school. By April 1943, he's a second lieutenant. Because of Hayden's background, General William Donovan. of the OSS.
now wants Hayden attached to his clandestine organization. And you've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story of Sterling Hayden. When we come back, more of Sterling Hayden's story, our Hollywood Goes to War series, here. on our American stories. Want to buy your way?
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Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds A one-of-a-kind index and lets you backtest it against the SP 500.
Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing, brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member FINRA, SIPC, advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor.
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Go to upfaithandfamily.com slash iHeart. And we continue with our American stories and with our Hollywood Goes to War series with Roger McGregor. It's telling the story of Sterling Hayden. Let's pick up where we last left off. The Marine Corps lends Lieutenant Hayden to General Donovan.
and Hayden is trained at OSS headquarters in Washington, DC. From there he sent to the OSS office in Cairo, Egypt. Three months later, Eden is operating out of a small coastal town, a monopoly. near the southeastern tip of the Italian peninsula. He organizes a fleet of 14 sailboats.
And during dark nights in late December 1943 and early January 1944, furries, weapons, and supplies. through the German-patrolled Adriatic Sea. to marshal Joseph Tito's communist guerrilla forces in Yugoslavia. Hayden is awarded the Silver Star for displaying great courage in making hazardous sea voyages in enemy-infested waters and reconnaissance trips through those enemy-held areas. From mid-February to April 1st, 1944, Hayden makes ten more clandestine trips, ferrying guns and supplies from southern Italy to Yugoslavia.
He describes a typical trip to the island of these. just off the Yugoslavian coast. By plunging through the Allied minefield late of an afternoon, a schooner always had a chance of reaching Vice at dawn. barely in time to be backed into a precipitous cove where she could be hastily camouflaged with pine boughs festooned in her rigging. unloaded the following night.
The camouflage repeated. and then driven toward Italy as soon as the weather served. If dodging Allied mines and German patrol vessels was not enough, Hayden's next assignment is even riskier. With a Marine Gunnery Sergeant and a Navy radio operator, Why Caden on loan to the OSS? Yeah.
Hayden parachutes into Yugoslavia and makes contact with partisan forces. We hooked up with about 30 of the toughest bastards on earth, said Aiden. None of them had had a bath in years. Ball had been in the thick of the fighting and marching all up and down Bosnia and Croatia. Mm-hmm.
They would only take a cigarette at a time, which they passed around in circles. During his next several months behind German lines, Hayden makes contact with two dozen downed American and British airmen at various locations. and leads them to the Adriatic coast, where sailboats take them to safety in southern Italy.
now occupied by the Allies. Late in 1944, Hayden is working with General Courtney Hodges in the First Army's push into Germany. Hayden's OSS team seeks out anti-Nazi Germans for work with the OSS. Uh In February 1945, Hayden is promoted to captain. Following VE Day in Europe, Is tasked with assessing bombing damage of ports along the coast of the North Sea.
Captain Sterling Hayden is released from active duty. in December 1945. His decorations include a silver star and two bronze arrowheads. Heaton is back in the movies in 1947. appearing in Blaze of Noon and Variety Girl.
He appears in another 55 films during the next 30 years. including the lead in the highly acclaimed The Asphalt Jungle in 1950. I got a chance to work in a picture called Asphalt Jungle. which you may have heard of. With John Houston.
So I went up to Mandeville Canyon and rented a house. Marilyn Monroe lived there later. She was in the Astral Jungle, was she? That was her first film, I believe. Her first primary film, huh?
I remember the day she came on the set, yeah, on it. Stop business. Everything stopped. And the lead in the equally highly acclaimed The Killing in 1956. All right, there's a parking lot less than 300 feet from the northwest corner of the track.
From a car parked in the southeast corner of that lot, you get a perfect view of the horses as they come around the far corner and start into the stretch. A man sitting in a car, parked in that spot, using a high-powered rifle with a telescopic sight, should be able to bring down any given horse with a single shot. Red Lightning will undoubtedly be leading in the stretch because that's the way he runs.
So he goes down, a couple of other horses pile up on top of him. There'll be plenty of confusion, I can guarantee you that. Despite these roles and dozens of others, as a cowboy, a seafarer, a military officer, a detective, or an outlaw. His most famous role is that Of General Jack D. Ripper in the great satire Doctor Strangelove in 1964.
I've seen very little of myself on film. Usually, because I feel uncomfortable in what I see, even when it's good, even when what passes for being good. When I worked with Cubic and Strange Love, And Lord knows it was a magnificent picture. We all know that. And apparently, I pulled my weight in it.
But I went through the worst day of my life the first day on that picture because I began to blow in my lines. And I went 48 takes. And now we're doing, as you know, what are called pickups. And I can't even do one damn line, huh? Huh?
And I'm pouring sweat and they're mopping me off.
Now a beautiful thing happened speaking of Stanley Kubrick I finally got up. I couldn't take it anymore. And I walked up to him and I said, Stanley, I apologize to you. And he said this to me: one of the loveliest things any man has ever said to me in my life. He said, Sterling.
I know you can't help what's going on, and you know I can't help you. He said, but the terror in your eyes, on your face, may just be the quality. And now he said to them, he said, the quality that we want in this jackass General Jack Ripper. He said, if it is not, come back in another couple of months and we'll do it all over again.
Now that was lovely, wasn't it? I'll never forget that. Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation, fluoridation of water? Uh, yes, I I have heard of that, Jack, yes. Yeah.
Well, do you know what it is? Yeah. Okay. Yes. It's me, huh?
Do you realize? that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face. Sterling Hayden's first wife is Madeline Carroll. who is the female lead in Hayden's first two movies. Their four years of separation during World War II ends the marriage.
He marries Beti Ann DeNoon in 1947. And they have four children before divorcing in 1958. He gains custody of the children, but is supposed to keep them in California. Instead, he loads the kids aboard his sailboat. The wanderer and sets out for Tahiti.
A photographer. Dodie Weston Thompson tags along. documenting the entire trip. including their time in Tahiti. In 1960, Hayden marries Catherine Devine McConnell.
and has two more children. Catherine has a son from her first marriage, Scott McConnell. Who years later becomes one of the founders and the editor of the American Conservative magazine. Sterling Hayden stays married to Catherine until he dies of cancer in 1986 at age 70. in his home at Sausaledo.
His ashes were spread over San Francisco Bay. He'd never liked Hollywood or acting. But it was an easy way for him to make money. He said, There's nothing wrong with being an actor, if that's what a man wants. But there's everything wrong with achieving an exalted status simply because one photographs well and is able to handle dialogue.
In the final analysis, an actor is only a pawn. Brilliant sometimes, rare and talented. capable of bringing pleasure and even inspiration to others. but no less upon for that. I didn't think it was really, I couldn't take it seriously because it seemed so ridiculous.
It seems so uh crazy, you know what I mean? Because I don't think there are any other businesses in this world where you can be paid very good money. and so-called semi-starred or whatever. And you don't know what you're doing. I started in 1940.
But Paramount? Then when I got that thing with with with Houston, with John Something said to me, hey, if you're gonna be here. Maybe you should learn what the hell you're doing.
So then I was sort of serious, huh? Though best remembered as a movie star, Sterling Hayden. was most at home sailing the high seas. or endearing missions. As a Marine officer, with the OSS.
And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Roger McGrath. He's the author of Gunfighters, Highwaymen, and Vigilantes, Violence on the Frontier, a U.S. Marine Always. Former history professor at UCLA, and you know him if you watch the history channel.
What a story he told about Sterling Hayden. My goodness, the things he loved sailing the high seas. And serving his country in combat. And the most dangerous combat missions of them all, of course, are involved in counterintelligence and espionage. I mean, imagine trying to figure out which Germans really are.
Really are people who hate the Nazis as opposed to spies themselves. and then you're dead. The American Spy is Dead. The story of Sterling Hayden, Silver Star recipient in World War II. A man who served his country like few others working for the OSS.
His story here on Our American Stories. Hey, Donald, you're really flying on that treadmill. I'm trying to run as fast as T-Mobile 5G home internet, Zach.
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