born March 24, 1930, Beech Grove, Ind., U.S.
died Nov. 7, 1980, Juárez, Mex.
U.S. film actor.
He served time in a reform school and a stint in the U.S. Marines before studying acting in New York City. He won notice on Broadway in A Hatful of Rain (1955) and made his screen debut in Somebody up There Likes Me (1956), then starred in the television series Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958–61). Cool and stoical, his loner heroes spoke through actions and rarely with words in films such as The Great Escape (1963), The Sand Pebbles (1966), Bullitt (1968), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Papillon (1973), and The Towering Inferno (1974).