Actor was lined up to play Bond
John Gavin Actor who became US ambassador to Mexico BORN APRIL 8, 1931 - DIED FEBRUARY 9, 2018, AGED 86
LIKE the US president under whom he served, John Gavin moved seamlessly from a movie career in Hollywood to the often turbulent world of politics. A star of films including Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1960 thriller Psycho and the Roman epic Spartacus, Gavin later became US ambassador to Mexico during Ronald Reagan’s administration.
He was often hailed as “the next Rock Hudson” at the start of his film career, appearing alongside starlets including Lana Turner in Imitation Of Life, Sophia Loren in A Breath Of Scandal and Susan Hayward in Back Street.
But his acting was frequently described as wooden by critics.
Even Hitchcock labelled him “the stiff” during the filming of Psycho in which Gavin played Sam Loomis, the lover of Janet Leigh’s character.
But there was no denying Gavin’s matinee idol good looks and on two separate occasions in the 1970s he was scheduled to play James Bond.
After the departure of George Lazenby he was signed to play 007 in 1971 film Diamonds Are Forever before Sean Connery was lured back to play the role he had given up four years earlier. Two years later Gavin was approached to play Bond in Live And Let Die before the producers decided that the actor had to be British and chose Roger Moore.
John Anthony Golenor was born in Los Angeles to Juan Vincent Apablasa and Delia Diana Pablos, a Mexican-born aristocrat. When his mother remarried two years later he was officially adopted by his stepfather, Herald Golenor.
After graduating in economics and Latin American affairs from Stanford University in 1952 he joined the navy and for three years served aboard the USS Princeton off the Korean coast.
He had no real interest in becoming a movie star but after a family friend arranged a screen test at Universal the studio offered him “so much money” he simply couldn’t resist.
Despite appearing in a number of Westerns beginning with Raw Edge in 1956 he didn’t break through to Hollywood’s mainstream until his role in the 1958 wartime drama A Time To Love And A Time To Die.
For much of the 1960s and 1970s he worked in film and TV and became president of the Screen Actors Guild between 1971 and 1973.
In 1980, he campaigned for his old Hollywood friend Ronald Reagan to become the Republican nominee for president and after Reagan entered the White House he named Gavin as his US ambassador to Mexico.
Although the actor who played Julius Caesar in Spartacus had widespread business interests in Latin America, had been a naval intelligence officer and spoke fluent Spanish and Portuguese he’d had no previous diplomatic experience.
And at times it showed. He would spend four-day weekends in Los Angeles rather than in Mexico, insult the country’s journalists, implicate officials in corrupt activities and was accused of interfering in Mexican politics and being insensitive to Mexican traditions.
Mexico City’s El Universal newspaper described him as “arrogant, imprudent, meddlesome” and “one of the most ghastly ambassadors” in Mexico in years.
After his resignation in 1986 he worked for the Atlantic Richfield oil company and became president of the parent company of the Spanishlanguage Univision TV network.
Gavin, who died after a long battle with leukaemia, is survived by his second wife, actress Constance Towers, his two children, Cristina and Maria from his first marriage, and two stepchildren.