BURBANK, Calif. (AP) -- Rory Calhoun caught his first acting break while riding a horse, and his rugged image and handsome face propelled him from there.
Calhoun, the lanky lumberjack and a stalwart hero of Western movies and the TV series "The Texan," died Wednesday at age 76. He had been hospitalized for 10 days with advanced stages of emphysema and diabetes, said his longtime friend, Paul Dean.Calhoun often told the story of how he was discovered in 1943 while he was horseriding in the Hollywood Hills. Alan Ladd, then a top star, happened to be out riding, too.
"I met this fellow up in the hills and stopped to talk," Calhoun recalled. "He asked me if I was an actor, and I said, 'No!' We talked some more, and he asked, 'How would you like to be in films?' "
His face and sturdy physique won him lesser roles in "Something for the Boys," "Sunday Dinner for a Soldier," "The Bullfighters" and other wartime films. His most important early role came as boxer James Corbett in "The Great John L."
The actor, whose real name was Francis Timothy Durgin, saw his career accelerate after a meeting with agent Henry Willson, who discovered and invented names for Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter and Troy Donahue.
He was considered ideal for such Westerns as "Massacre River," "Rogue River," "Yellow Tomahawk" and "Four Guns to the Border." In the late '40s and early '50s, he also appeared in "The Red House," "Ticket to Tomahawk," "How to Marry a Millionaire," "Meet Me After the Show" and "With a Song in My Heart."