David Hedison was born Albert David Hedison, Jr. in Providence, RI. He decided he wanted to be an actor after seeing Blood and Sand. He started out in the theater as Al Hedison, receiving a Theatre World Award for most promising newcomer after appearing in the play "Much Ado About Nothing". He soon signed on with Twentieth Century-Fox and starred in several movies before going on to TV's Five Fingers and a name change to David Hedison. He then appeared in the popular TV sci-fi series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. After the show went off the air, Hedison continued acting in many made-for-TV films and guest shots on TV series, including two James Bond films. He also was a series regular on the soap opera Another World. More recently, he starred in theatrical productions with veteran actors Juliet Mills and Lois Nettleton. Hedison can currently be seen on the TV soap The Young and the Restless.


The Fly (1958): $750/week

First actor to portray 007's CIA friend Felix Leiter twice: Live and Let Die (1973) and Licence to Kill (1989). Some publications list his birth name as "Ara Heditsian." His Armenian grandfather reportedly changed the family name from Heditsian to Hedison because everyone always mispronounced it as Hedison. His name is one of just five celebrity names actually incorporated into The Statler Brothers' top ten song "The Movies". The lyricist needed a word that rhymed with Thomas Edison.