People
Sterling Hayden
Acting · follow into films and chains
Biography
Sterling Walter Hayden (born Sterling Relyea Walter; March 26, 1916 – May 23, 1986) was an American actor and author. He dropped out of high school at the age of 16 and hired on as mate on a schooner. He was a ship's captain at 22, and in need of cash to buy his own boat, established himself as a model in New York, discovered by Paramount Studios talent scouts and offered a contract. Sterling Hayden, the handsome tall blond actor who played wholesome leading-man movie roles in the 1940's and 1950's and later weathered into a rough-hewn solid character actor in films such as "Dr. Strangelove", "The Godfather," "Nine to Five" and "King of the Gypsies". He appeared in 71 feature films and tv-productions from the debut in "Virginia" 1941 to the tv mini-series "The Blue and the Gray" in 1982. He wrote of his obsessive fascination with the sea in a 1963 autobiography, "Wanderer," and in 1970 his 700-page epic novel of the sea, "Voyage," was a main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. Sterling Hayden appeared in the German documentary, "Pharos of Chaos," (1983) filmed aboard his barge in Europe, and seemed to be in an alcoholic stupor much of the time, supplementing his wine intake with hashish. On camera he said: "What confuses me is I ain't all that unhappy. So why do I drink, I don't know."
Notable films
Where to start
Highlights from credits and KinoChain journeys.
The Godfather
As Captain McCluskey
Nine to Five
Appears in a KinoChain journey
The Long Goodbye
Appears in a KinoChain journey
The Asphalt Jungle
Appears in a KinoChain journey
Johnny Guitar
Appears in a KinoChain journey
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
As Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper
Mario Puzo's The Godfather: The Complete Novel for Television
As Capt. Mark McCluskey
The Killing
As Johnny Clay
Chains
KinoChain journeys
Public chains that pass through their films — or name them as a bridge.
The Writer's Fight
From Spartacus to the shadows of the blacklist, a chain of films that honours the courage of Hollywood's silenced screenwriters.
8 films
Dolly Parton and the Art of the Country Star Turn
From Rhinestone to Dumplin', a chain of films where country music royalty carries the picture, each in a key uniquely their own.
8 films
The Art of the Unresolved
From the sun-bleached streets of Los Angeles to the fog-bound docks of Hamburg, these eight films turn the detective story inside out, leaving questions hanging...
8 films
The Heist Film Slips Its Own Cuffs
Seven robberies that treat the job as a pretext: for politics, for grief, for a formal joke. The loot matters less than what the filmmakers smuggle out alongsid...
7 films
The Mind's Eye: Crime Films of Obsession and Interiority
From a detective's haunted pursuit to a killer's fractured psyche, this chain traces cinema's most intimate crime stories, where the real action happens inside...
8 films
20 Home Video Releases Every Film Obsessive Should Own
There was a brief, glorious period in the late 1990s and early 2000s when buying a film on home video felt less like acquiring a product and more like being han...
20 films
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Related people
Collaborators & neighbours
Acted
Nine to Five
1980 · Russell Tinsworthy
King of the Gypsies
1978 · King Zharko Stepanowicz
Mario Puzo's The Godfather: The Complete Novel for Television
1977 · Capt. Mark McCluskey
The Long Goodbye
1973 · Roger Wade
The Godfather
1972 · Captain McCluskey
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
1964 · Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper
The Killing
1956 · Johnny Clay
Johnny Guitar
1954 · Johnny 'Guitar' Logan
The Asphalt Jungle
1950 · Dix Handley