One of my recent rabbit hole excursions involved Gardner McKay. I first heard about him through a book and a documentary on writer Dominick Dunne. McKay was a somewhat lost soul who was picked by Dunne to star in the 1959-1962 TV series, “Adventures in Paradise” for his looks and knowledge about sailing. But mainly the looks. In Dunne’s own words from a 1999 Vanity Fair article:
In 1959, I was the co-executive producer of a television series called Adventures in Paradise, created by the late James Michener and starring the then unknown Gardner McKay as the captain-for-hire of a schooner called the Tiki, which sailed the islands of the South Pacific. There are several versions of how Gardner got the part, but I was there and this is the correct one. We were screen-testing all the best-looking young actors in Hollywood for the coveted part of Captain Adam Troy. Ron Ely, who later played Tarzan on TV, had the inside track on the part, but we were still testing. One day in a coffee shop, I saw, sitting at a nearby table in a languid pose, reading a book of poetry, a startlingly handsome young man with attitude, whom I later described to Martin Manulis, the head of television at Fox, as “a little Gary Cooper, a little Cary Grant, a little Ty Power and a lot of Errol Flynn.” He was at the time, in the parlance of the town, nobody, absolutely nobody, but his attitude declared that he was somebody. I dropped my Fox business card on his table and said, “If you’re interested in discussing a television series, call me.” He did, and we tested him. Gardner’s test was certainly not among the top three or four in the acting department, but as the production staff sat in the projection room, we’d keep going back to it, and one of us would say, “This guy’s got something.” Finally, we gave him the part.
McKay even landed a 1959 LIFE magazine cover before the show was aired:
Dunne would go on to comment about how McKay gave up Hollywood:
The series lasted three years. Then Gardner did a very interesting thing: he ended his acting career ... the very next day he had a call from George Cukor, who ... asked Gardner to play the romantic lead opposite Monroe. It was the dream of an actor’s lifetime — the great George Cukor, the legendary Marilyn Monroe — but it came a day too late. Gardner had made up his mind. He declined the role. Cukor was flabbergasted.
How did I not hear about this? As far as I knew, Dean Martin was the one and only consideration to play opposite Marilyn in her ill-fated/unfinished final film, “Somethings’s Got to Give.” In his autobiography, Journey Without a Map, McKay gives his version:
You have to know when to discard. Stand up and step away from the table. Push away from it. The table will always be there. Marilyn Monroe would call. Not because I was a star but because I didn’t want to be one anymore. I was leaving. I didn’t want to be in Hollywood. And by not wanting to be there, I had turned her down. She would call. She seemed so intelligent. She sounded like a jilted lover, she spoke clearly and well. I was the only one who could play the part. I felt that I had dislodged something balanced in her. But I was leaving. The director George Cukor, legends galore, did not call. But he was livid. He told someone, “McKay doesn’t even know how to walk.” Which meant, I imagine that I was not a proper star, which I wasn’t, and that I shambled which I did. And, anyway, television did not turn down features. After a hundred of these episodes [Adventures in Paradise], when Frank Neill [public relations man at 20th Century-Fox assigned to McKay] found out I was quitting Paradise, he thought it odd. He came to me and told me that because it had been such a hit and had meant so much to so many people and that because I was getting more fan mail at 20th Century-Fox than anyone, including Marilyn Monroe he would tell me, that he could arrange for me to have my name set in brass letters, in terrazzo, bordered by a brass star and placed on the sidewalk of Hollywood Boulevard. On the sidewalk! He said it would cost $640. I don’t know if I was expected to grab the check.
This just didn’t sound right to me. Further digging showed that James Garner had been the original choice by Fox, but he chose a different project. Marilyn’s top choice was always Martin.
The May 9 publicity blurb that accompanied the below shot:
Funnymen Dean Martin (left) and Phil Silvers pretend to watch the other actors at work as they clowned at the door of Martin’s dressing room between scenes of “Something’s Got to Give,” at Hollywood at 20th Century-Fox studio. Silvers, returning briefly to the studio where he spent eight of his youthful years, is playing a cameo role in the film.
So where did McKay fit in? In the same film, there was a much smaller role of Stephen Burkett, the hunky man who was stranded on a desert island with Marilyn’s character, Ellen Arden. This role was played by Tom Tryon.
It would be a stretch to call this role the romantic lead, but based on what was required of the character (looking good shirtless), this was most likely the “romantic lead” that McKay and Dunne were referring to.
If you’re considering reading McKay’s book, I can’t say I would recommend it. He comes off as a somewhat self-centered yet un-centered soul who experienced a lot of adventures but rarely had happiness. The memoir is somewhat rambling, which could be explained by the fact that he died before it was published, so that task fell to his widow, Madeleine.
See more classic Movie & TV photos at my main website.
