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 The actor died peacefully in his Beverly Hills home,
according to a statement from Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership.
ABC Western "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp," in which the
exceedingly handsome, muscular O'Brian starred as the title
character, ran for 221 episodes from 1955-61. At the time he was
one of television's great male sex symbols.
In 1957 he was nominated for an Emmy for best continuing
performance by an actor in a dramatic series for his work on
"The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp."
So popular and so much a part of popular culture was O'Brian
that he showed up as Earp, uncredited, in the 1959 Bob Hope
Western comedy "Alias Jesse James," as well as in the 1960 TV
movie "The Secret World of Eddie Hodges"; when the actor guested
on "Make Room for Daddy" in 1956, the episode was entitled
"Wyatt Earp Visits the Williamses."
The actor had appeared in many feature Westerns by the time ABC
cast him in its series as Wyatt Earp, a lawman who was one of
the legends of the Old West.
Later he appeared in features including the 1963 comedy "Come
Fly With Me"; in 1965, he starred in the feature "Agatha
Christie's Ten Little Indians" along with Shirley Eaton and
Fabian and had an uncredited role in Otto Preminger's World War
II drama "In Harm's Way," starring John Wayne, Patricia Neal and
Kirk Douglas.
In 1972-73 he starred with Doug McClure, Anthony Franciosa and
Burgess Meredith in the NBC series "Search."
O'Brian had a small role in John Wayne's last film, Don Siegel's
"The Shootist" (1976), as the last character ever killed by
Wayne on screen -- O'Brian, a good friend of Wayne's, considered
it a great honor.
The actor reprised the role of Wyatt Earp for two episodes of
the CBS series "Guns of Paradise" in 1989, and in the TV movies
"The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw" (1991), starring
Kenny Rogers, and CBS' "Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone" (1994).
O'Brian did plenty of work outside the Western genre, appearing
in the Arnold Schwarzenegger-Danny DeVito comedy "Twins" (1988)
as one of several men who donated DNA that produced the "twins"
and guesting on "Charlie's Angels," "Fantasy Island," "Murder,
She Wrote" and "L.A. Law." He appeared in an Animal Planet
adaptation of Jack London's "Call of the Wild" in 2000.
Hugh Charles Krampe was born in Rochester, New York. Hugh
lettered in a variety of sports.
He spent a semester at the University of Cincinnati but during
World War II he dropped out to enlist in the Marine Corps --
where his father had been an officer. At 17 he became the
youngest Marine drill instructor, according to the TCM website.
After the war, O'Brian moved to Los Angeles to study at UCLA. He
had started doing stage work, and was discovered by Ida Lupino,
who signed him to appear as the second male lead in the polio
drama "Never Fear," which she had co-scripted and was directing;
for O'Brian that film led to a contract with Universal Pictures.
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He had a brief, uncredited role in the classic noir film "D.O.A.,"
starring Edmond O'Brien, but he was soon -- almost inevitably --
doing Westerns, appearing in the Gene Autry vehicle "Beyond the
Purple Hills" (1950); "Vengeance Valley," starring Burt Lancaster
and Robert Walker; Budd Boetticher's "The Cimarron Kid" (1952),
starring Audie Murphy; Raoul Walsh's "The Lawless Breed" (1953),
starring Rock Hudson and Julie Adams; Boetticher's "Seminole," also
starring Hudson; Boetticher's "The Man From the Alamo," starring
Glenn Ford; "Back to God's Country," also starring Hudson; Walsh's
"Saskatchewan" (1954), starring Alan Ladd and Shelley Winters;
"Drums Across the River," starring Murphy; Edward Dmytryk's "Broken
Lance," starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner and Richard Widmark;
and "White Feather," starring Wagner and Debra Paget.
Occasionally he worked outside the Western genre, as in WWII
actioner "Fighting Coast Guard" (1951); "On the Loose" (1951), in
which he had a supporting role as a doctor; "Son of Ali Baba,"
starring Tony Curtis and Piper Laurie; the Douglas Sirk-directed
musical "Meet Me at the Fair" (1953); the bizarre comedy "Fireman
Save My Child" (1954), originally intended for Abbott and Costello;
and the Ethel Merman musical "There's No Business Like Show
Business," which also starred Donald O'Connor and Marilyn Monroe.
O'Brian dedicated a great deal of his life to a charitable effort he
created himself in 1958, the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership
Foundation, a nonprofit youth leadership development program for
high schoolers. The organization sponsors 10,000 high school
sophomores annually through leadership programs in all 50 states and
20 countries.
The concept for the program was inspired by the nine days O'Brian
spent visiting with humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Africa in
1958.
At the Golden Globes in 1954, O'Brian won for most promising
newcomer - male (tied with Steve Forrest and Richard Egan).
O'Brian won a Golden Boot Award in 1991 (the awards, sponsored and
presented by the Motion Picture & Television Fund, are bestowed upon
those who have made significant contributions to the genre of
Western television and movies).
He is survived by his wife, the former Virginia Barber, whom he
married in 2006 at the age of 81.
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