Steve Cochran

Rugged, masculine lead with slicked-back jet-black hair, usually cast as cads or insentitive lovers, who hit his peak in the 1950s. Discovered by Mae West, with whom he appeared on stage in the Broadway revival of "Diamond Lil" (1948) and "Catherine the Great" (the latter winning him a Warner Bros. contract), Cochran was forceful as a gangster in Raoul Walsh's "White Heat" (1949); he starred as a wanderer in Michelangelo Antonioni's sullen "Il Grido" (1957), and directed, produced and wrote a feature, "Tell Me in the Sunlight" (released 1967), before his premature death aboard his yacht in 1965.