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Christopher George was born on February 25th, 1931 in Royal Oak, Michigan with the birth name Christopher John George. Both of his parents, John and Vaseleke were Greek immigrants and although he lived in the United States, he could not speak English until the age of six as his family only spoke Greek at home.
When his family relocated to New Jersey, George began to go to regular school and learn English but also studied Greek at a Greek School and this was where he first developed an interest in acting.
Later again his family moved, this time to Florida and he attended Miami High School where George excelled in sports. However, before earning his diploma, both he and his brother Nick, both boys decided not to complete high school and instead joined the Marine Corps where he completed a four year enlistment.
Later after George had completed his military service in 1952, he did choose to go back and complete his education and earn his high school diploma. He then enrolled at the University of Miami in 1953 and graduated in 1958 with a degree in Business Administration.
Upon completing college he originally had a job lined up with an investment company but once he got his degree he began to have second thoughts about what type of career he was truly looking for. He began searching for any type of employment to help support him such as a bar tender and private investigator.
George soon decided on a career in acting, relocated to New York City and first found work like many other actors as a stage actor and was also cast in a number of television commercials. Some of his early stage roles were in such plays as, “All My Sons”, “The Moon is Blue”, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”.
When George appeared in a shaving cream commercial and won the New York Film Festival Award for Best actor in a commercial, his career finally began to take off. He was also making early television role appearances on such series as, “Named City” and “Bewitched”.
By the mid 60’s he had now broken into the film industry with a role in, “Harm’s Way” (1965) starring John Wayne, Kirk Douglas and Henry Fonda which soon followed with roles in some western films such as, “El Dorado” (1966) and “The Train Robbers” (1973) both starring John Wayne. He was also making a name for himself as a print model and actually appeared in one issue of Playgirl magazine in 1974.
Christopher George became most well known for his role between 1966 and 1968 where he starred in 58 episodes of the World War II television series, “Rat Patrol” playing Sergeant Sam Troy. Along with his success from this series he was also a guest star in the science fiction series called, “Immortal” (1969) which ran for fifteen episodes on ABC.
Adding to his television and theater credits as well as his early film roles became some more significant roles later in his career. George began appearing on such feature films as, “Project X” (1968), “Midway” (1976), “Day of the Animals” (1977), “City of the Living Dead” (1980), “Graduation Day” (1981), “Enter the Ninja” (1981) and his final film role was in 1983 in, “Mortuary”.
He and his only wife, actress, Lynda Day George had appeared together on a number of projects such as the television movies, “House on Greenapple Road” (1970), “Cruise Into Terror” (1978), “Mayday at 40,000 Feet!” (1976) and “Vega$” (1978). They married in 1973 and had two children together.
Christopher George passed away too soon at the age of fifty four, on November 28th, 1983 in Los Angeles, California after suffering a fatal heart attack. His remains are buried at Pierce Brothers Westwood Memorial Park.
Source: matineeclassics.com/celebrities/actors/christopher_george/details/
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