Robert Wagner

R.J. Wagner was born 1930 in Detroit, the son of a steel executive. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was seven. Always wanting to be an actor, he held a variety of jobs (including one as a golf caddy for Clark Gable) while pursuing his goal, but it was while dining with his parents at a restaurant in Beverly Hills that he was discovered by a talent scout. After making his uncredited screen debut in The Happy Years (1950), Wagner was signed by 20th Century Fox, which carefully built him up toward stardom. He played romantic leads with ease, but it was not until he essayed the two-scene role of a shell-shocked war veteran in With a Song in My Heart (1952) that studio executives recognized his potential as a dramatic actor. He went on to play the title roles in Prince Valiant (1954) and The True Story of Jesse James (1957), and portrayed a cold-blooded murderer in A Kiss Before Dying (1956). In the mid-'60s, however, his film career skidded to a stop after The Pink Panther (1963... [Details Intro]