Gardner McKay

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Gardner McKay

Adventures in Paradise

George Cadogan Gardner McKay (June 10, 1932 – November 21, 2001) was an American actor, artist, and author.

Born in New York City, McKay graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he majored in art. He became a Hollywood heartthrob in the 1950s and 1960s. He landed the lead role in Adventures in Paradise, based loosely on the writings ofJames Michener. His character, Adam Troy, was a Korean War veteran who purchased the twin-masted 82-foot (25 m) schooner Tiki, and sailed the South Pacific.

McKay was under contract to MGM when he was spotted by Dominick Dunne, then a television producer for Twentieth Century Fox, who was searching for an actor to star in his planned Adventures in Paradise. Dunne put his business card on the table and said, "If you're interested in discussing a television series, call me." McKay competed in screen tests with nine other candidates, and won it because of his good looks and ability to sail. An accomplished sailor, he had made eight Atlantic crossings by the age of seventeen. Although previously unknown to the public, McKay appeared on the July 6, 1959, cover of Life Magazine just two months before the series premiered.

In the 1957-1958 season, McKay played Lieutenant Dan Kelly in the 38-episode syndicated western series, Boots and Saddles, with Jack Pickard and Patrick McVey. Thereafter, he was cast in the episode "Showdown" of the NBC western, Jefferson Drum, with Jeff Richards.

McKay left Hollywood to pursue his interest in photography, sculpture, and writing. He turned down the opportunity to star opposite Marilyn Monroe in Something's Got to Give, a film which was never completed. He exhibited his sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, besides holding individual exhibitions. His lifeboat rescue photographs of the Andrea Doria were published internationally. McKay wrote many plays and novels, and was a literary critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner between 1977 and 1982. He taught writing classes at the University of California at Los Angeles, University of Southern California, University of Alaska, and the University of Hawaii.

McKay's awards included three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships for playwriting, the Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, and Sidney Carrington Prize. He was a winner in Canadian Regional Drama Festival, and runner-up in the Hemingway Short Story Contest.

McKay settled in Hawaii, where he died from prostate cancer in 2001, aged 69. He was survived by his wife Madeleine Madigan, a painter, and two children.

(Wikipedia)

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http://www.nytimes.com

Gardner McKay, 69, TV Heartthrob Who Turned to Writing

By JOHN SULLIVAN

Published: November 24, 2001

Gardner McKay, who became famous as the star of the 1960's television series ''Adventures in Paradise'' but abandoned the spotlight to move to the Amazon jungle, died at his home in Honolulu on Wednesday. He was 69 and had been fighting prostate cancer while trying to finish his memoirs.

In later life, Mr. McKay became a successful playwright and an author, but he gained celebrity status as Adam Troy, the dashing skipper of the schooner Tiki, which plied the South Pacific. He was better known for his rugged good looks than for his acting talent: in an early review, one critic said that Mr. McKay played his role ''in one emotion.''

But Life magazine quickly labeled Mr. McKay ''a new Apollo,'' featuring him on its cover and predicting that his face would ''launch a million sighs and burn its way into the hearts of hordes of American females.''

The prediction did not come true, and perhaps no one was happier than Mr. McKay. When ''Adventures in Paradise' died after nearly three years, he did not renew his contract with 20th Century Fox and turned down a chance to star in a movie with Marilyn Monroe -- despite personal appeals from Monroe. His wife, Madeleine McKay, said he left Hollywood and moved south, eventually finding work as an agronomist's assistant in the rain forest.

''As soon as his contract was up, he said that is it, he was quitting,'' Mrs. McKay said. ''He felt he had to cleanse himself, to get it out of his system and to become an unknown.''

Born in Manhattan, Mr. McKay was raised in New York and Paris. He never intended to become an actor. His father, an advertising executive, died after Mr. McKay's second year at Cornell University, and Mr. McKay left school to work as a sculptor. An offer of a modeling job lured him back to Paris. On the trip to Europe, Mr. McKay was aboard the Île de France when the ship passed the stricken Andrea Doria. He scrambled into a rescue boat and snapped photographs of the sinking liner.

Mr. McKay's discovery as an actor reads like a line from an overused script. He was sitting in a Hollywood coffee shop when Dominick Dunne, who was co-producing ''Adventures in Paradise,'' spotted him reading a book of poetry.

''He was at the time, in the parlance of the town, nobody, absolutely nobody, but his attitude declared that he was somebody,'' Mr. Dunne wrote in a 1999 article in Vanity Fair.

Mr. Dunne arranged a screen test, and Mr. McKay, an imposing 6 feet 5 inches tall, was given the part. ''Gardner was a classy guy -- good goods, as they used to say,'' Mr. Dunne wrote.

After ''Adventures in Paradise'' sank, Mr. McKay spent two years in the Amazon, then moved to France, where reruns of the show had become a sensation. His next stop was Egypt, where his wife said he traveled the desert on camelback.

Mr. McKay returned to the United States and began a career as a writer. He wrote a number of plays, including the well-received ''Sea Marks,'' and several novels. One of his last, the thriller ''Toyer,'' was the best known. Mr. McKay, who was the drama critic for The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner from 1977 to 1982, was also a prolific short-story writer and was regularly featured reading his works on public radio stations in Hawaii.

Jean Doumanian, a movie producer and a friend of Mr. McKay, said he always considered himself a writer rather than an actor.

''He hated the fact that he was known for that television series,'' she said. ''It was not the professional or private path he wanted to take.''

In addition to his wife, Mr. McKay is survived by his brother, Hugh Dean McKay, of California; his son, Tristan Gardner Lebaile, of Paris; his daughter, Liza McKay Petree, of San Francisco; and one granddaughter.

Although Mr. McKay thought of himself as a writer who, for a short time, had been a famous actor, he never escaped his celebrity. His wife said that decades after the show went off the air, people continued to recognize him.

''He still gets fan mail, every week,'' she said. ''People were always coming up to him, saying, 'You are the reason I moved to Hawaii.' He got a kick out of it.''

Gardner McKay in ''Adventures in Paradise,'' ended in 1962. He was still receiving fan mail about the series at the time of his death.

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