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At the age of eight, Fleming hopped on a freight train to Chicago to escape his abusive father. Following hospitalization for gang fight injuries, he was returned to California where he lived with his mother and worked at Paramount as a laborer. Fleming joined the Merchant Marine, and then he served in the U.S. Navy the Pacific in WW II, where he and was a Master Carpenter in the Seabees.
From 1946 to 1957, Fleming appeared on stage in Chicago and New York with featured roles in numerous plays on Broadway including "My Three Angels," "Stalag 17," and "No Time For Sergeants." Fleming's television career began in the early 1950's with live performances on "Hallmark Summer Theatre," "The Web," "Suspense," "Kraft Television Theatre," and many other dramatic series. In 1954, he starred in Paramount's film "Conquest of Space," followed by "Queen of Outer Space" for Allied Artists. In 1958, Fleming became the star of CBS-TV's long-running western "Rawhide" as the trail boss Gil Favor. He remained with the top-rated show for seven of its eight seasons, and he had planned to retire to Hawaii where he had purchased a ranch.
He acted in "The Glass Bottom Boat" in 1965, and he was hired by MGM-TV to film the two-part adventure program "High Jungle" in Peru. During the shooting of location shots on the Huallaga River on September 28, 1966, Fleming dove (intentionally?) from a dug-out canoe after paddling it beyond the rapids. His body was lost in the turbulent water and was not recovered until three days later.
Most cattle today are like one large fillet. They are too pampered to appear on "Rawhide"
Eric Fleming
During Eric Fleming's enlistment in the Seabees in 1942, his face was shattered when a 200-pound block of steel slipped from a hoist. A long convalescence and four plastic surgical procedures created the face familiar to "Rawhide" (1959) viewers.
Eric Fleming
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Edward Heddy
4 July 1925, Santa Paula, California
28 September 1966, Tingo Maria area, Peru
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Drowned while filming a TV scene in Peru at age 41.
Fleming co-wrote two episodes of "Rawhide" (1959) with Chris Miller: "A Woman's Place" and "Incident of a Night on the Town". He appeared in three episodes of "Bonanza" (1959) following his departure from "Rawhide".
He started acting with some stage work and it seemed to suit him. Eventually he moved on to films and television. Prior to his work on ‘Rawhide’ 50s sci-fi fans were familiar with Eric Fleming from his work in several B movies of the era most notably - ‘The Queen of Outer Space’ (1958) a Cinemascope bit of schlock with Zsa Zsa Gabor as a Venusian with a Hungarian accent and an original story by Ben Hecht (!!). He was second billed as Captain Barnet Merrit in ‘Conquest of Space’ (1955). He played a psychiatrist in the Allied Artists film ‘Fright’ (1957), and also starred in ‘Curse of the Undead’ (1959) – (aka ‘Mark of the West’) a unique Wild West vampire flick costarring Michael Pate. Despite his fame he never was part of the movie/TV actor social scene and even after he gained fame continued to live quietly over a converted garage in the Hollywood Hills.
Fleming was unmarried and had no children. He was to have married long-time companion Lynne Garber within two days of his death.
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