Tony Young

As the son of radio, TV and film character actor Carleton G. Young, dark, dexterous and good-looking Tony Young was exposed early on to the machinations of the Hollywood industry. Born in New York in 1937, he was raised in Hollywood after his father's on-camera character work increased. Although Tony was offered some film roles in the early 1950s while still a teen, his father insisted that Tony receive a proper education first before putting together any kind of acting career. Following a hitch with the US Air Force, Tony attended Los Angeles City College. Working initially as an NBC page, his interest in acting had not flagged after all this time and the virile, brawny wannabe began landing TV roles in 1959 with such western shows as Overland Trail (1960), The Deputy (1959), Bronco (1958) and Laramie (1959), not to mention bit parts in the films Walk Like a Dragon (1960) and The Marriage-Go-Round (1961). In 1961 Tony was handed his own weekly series as a cavalry undercover agent in the TV western Gunslinger (1961). While the program was short-lived, it managed to basically pigeonhole him as a western player. Such low-budget films as He Rides Tall (1964) (in which he played a U.S. marshal) and Taggart (1964) (in which he is accused of murder and must clear his name) followed. On the TV front, reliable guestings occurred on such popular shows as Star Trek: The Original Series (1966), The Virginian (1962), Medical Center (1969), Bonanza (1959) and The Streets of San Francisco (1972). From there Tony moved more into to character work supporting Elvis Presley in his non-musical western Charro! (1969) and James Garner in the Italian "spaghetti western" A Man Called Sledge (1970). Roles in action-adventure and blaxploitation flicks also came and went in the early 70s, including Chrome and Hot Leather (1971), Play It As It Lays (1972), Black Gunn (1972), Superchick (1973) and The Outfit (1973). Thrice married and divorced to actresses, he was first briefly married to Playboy playmate Connie Mason, then to Madlyn Rhue who bore him one child and co-starred with him on both film and TV before and after their divorce, and finally to Sondra Currie. Tony's father died of cancer in 1971 at age 64. Tony, who retired from acting in the early 1990s, later succumbed to lung cancer in 2002 at the very same age as his father.