Biography for
Eric Fleming (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

4 July 1925, Santa Paula, California, USA

Date of Death

28 September 1966, Tingo Maria area, Peru (drowned)

Birth Name

Edward Heddy

Height

6' (1.83 m)

Mini Biography

At the age of eight, he hopped a freight train to Chicago to escape an abusive father. Following hospitalization for gang fight injuries, he was returned to California where he lived with his mother and worked at Paramount as a laborer. Fleming joined the Merchant Marine, served in the Pacific in WW II, and was a Master Carpenter in the U.S. Navy Seabees. From 1946-1957, he appeared on stage in Chicago and New York with featured roles in numerous plays on Broadway including "My Three Angels," "Stalag 17," and "No Time For Sergeants." Fleming's television career began in the early 1950's with live performances on "Hallmark Summer Theatre," "The Web," "Suspense," "Kraft Television Theatre," and many other dramatic series. In 1954, he starred in Paramount's "Conquest of Space," followed by "Queen of Outer Space" for Allied Artists. In 1958, Fleming became the star of CBS-TV's long-running western "Rawhide" as trail boss Gil Favor. He remained with the top-rated show for seven of its eight seasons and planned to retire to Hawaii where he had purchased a ranch. He filmed "The Glass Bottom Boat" in 1965 and contracted with MGM-TV to film the two-part adventure series "High Jungle" in Peru. During the shooting of location shots on the Huallaga River on September 28, 1966, Fleming dove from a dug-out canoe after paddling it beyond the rapids. His body was lost in the turbulent water and was not recovered until three days later.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Sherry Hansley

Trivia

Drowned while filming a scene in Peru at age 41.

During Fleming's enlistment in the Seabees in 1942, his face was shattered when a 200-pound block of steel slipped from a hoist. A long convalescence and four plastic surgical procedures created the face familiar to "Rawhide" (1959) viewers.

Fleming co-wrote two episodes of "Rawhide" (1959) with Chris Miller: "A Woman's Place" and "Incident of a Night on the Town". He appeared in three episodes of "Bonanza" (1959) following his departure from "Rawhide".

Fleming was unmarried and had no children. He was to have married long-time companion Lynne Garber within two days of his death.

Personal Quotes

[Citizen-News/Los Angeles, March 1, 1962] Most cattle today are like one large fillet. They are too pampered to appear on "Rawhide" (1959).

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