- Brett Halsey
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Brett Halsey 
Halsey in March 2011Born Charles Oliver Hand
June 20, 1933
Santa Ana, California, U.S.Other names Montgomery Ford Occupation Actor Spouse Renate Hoy (1954–1959)
Luciana Paluzzi (m. 1960–1962)
Heidi Brühl (m. 1964–1976)Brett Halsey (born June 20, 1933, in Santa Ana, California), is an American film actor, sometimes credited as Montgomery Ford. He is best known as the original John Abbott on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, a role he held from May 1980 to March 1981, before being replaced by Jerry Douglas.[1]
Contents
Career
Interested in acting since he was a child, Brett was employed as a page at CBS Television studios. Whilst there he met Jack Benny and his wife Mary Livingstone who introduced him to the head of Universal Pictures who placed him in a school with other aspiring actors for the studio.[2]
In 1958, Halsey guest starred in the episode "The Imposter" of Richard Carlson's syndicated western television series Mackenzie's Raiders, a fictional account of cavalry Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie. Also in 1958, Halsey had the lead role of a life-saving sailor in an episode of Highway Patrol. Halsey also guest starred in Wendell Corey's Harbor Command, a military drama about the United States Coast Guard. In 1959, he had a co-starring role in the science-fiction film The Atomic Submarine with Arthur Franz and Dick Foran.
From 1961–1962, Halsey starred with Barry Coe and Gary Lockwood in the ABC television series Follow the Sun, a story of two magazine free-lance writers living in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In 1961, Halsey won the Golden Globe Award for "New Star of the Year". His Follow the Sun co-star, Barry Coe, had won the same honor in 1960. The award was discontinued in 1983.
Halsey played supporting and co-starring roles in Hollywood, having appeared in such films as Return of the Fly (1959) with Vincent Price. By the early 1960s, he relocated to Italy where he found himself in high demand in a score of adventurous films such as Seven Swords for the King or The Avenger of Venice, being often cast a swashbuckling hero. he also appeared in a few Spaghetti Westerns and Eurospy films. Halsey guest starred in the episode "Thin Ice" in 1959 of Paluzzi's NBC espionage series, Five Fingers, starring David Hedison.
He returned to the United States in the early 1970s and worked in film and television. He made many appearances in such serials as General Hospital and Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, but also made supporting appearances in higher-profile films such as The Godfather Part III. He also appeared as the captain of a luxury space liner in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode "Cruise Ship to the Stars".
Halsey worked with Italian horror director Lucio Fulci on such films such as Touch of Death[3] and A Cat in the Brain.
Personal life
In 1954, he married Miss Germany 1952 and actress Renate Hoy, who appeared in such films as The Sea Chase with John Wayne. They had two children, son Charles Oliver Hand (a.k.a. Rock Bottom of the notorious L.A. punk band Rock Bottom and the Spys) and daughter Tracy Leigh. They divorced in 1959.
From 1960 to 1962, he was married to Italain actress Luciana Paluzzi. They had one son, Christian, and co-starred in 1961 as a newlywed couple in Return to Peyton Place. In 1964, Halsey married the popular German actress and singer Heidi Brühl. They had two children, son Clayton Alexander Siegfried and daughter Nicole. They divorced in 1976.
Toward the end of the 1990s Halsey moved to Costa Rica to teach acting for camera in San Jose. Currently Halsey resides in Laguna Hills, CA with his wife Victoria Korda (granddaughter of Alexander Korda) where he spends most of his time writing and making the occasional film appearance. On August 10, 2005 his son Rock Halsey was killed while serving time in a U.S. penitentiary.
Notes
External links
- Brett Halsey at the Internet Movie Database
- Brett Halsey at AllRovi
- Lex-barker.com interview
Categories:- 1933 births
- Living people
- Actors from California
- American expatriates in Italy
- American film actors
- American soap opera actors
- American television actors
- Spaghetti Western actors
- New Star of the Year (Actor) Golden Globe winners
- People from Santa Ana, California
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