Denny Miller(1934-2014)
- Actor
Denny Miller was born in Bloomington, Indiana, where his father, Ben
Miller, was a physical=education instructor at Indiana University. He
and his brother Kent began playing basketball almost from the days
they were born. The Miller family left Bloomington when Denny was in
fourth grade. He and Kent played basketball in Silver Spring, Maryland
and Baldwin, New York before the family moved to Los Angeles where,
at University High School, Denny and Kent came to the attention of coach
John Wooden. They were given full-ride scholarships to UCLA. The
Miller brothers played together at UCLA for one year, and their father
joined the faculty of UCLA. In his senior year, while working as a furniture
mover to pay for school, Denny was discovered on Sunset Boulevard by a
talent agent, who signed him with MGM. His first role was a bit part in
Some Came Running (1958), which was filmed in Madison, Indiana. Denny said,
"I was the only one who came running. I came running to tell
Dean Martin that somebody was in town to shoot him!" He
became the first blond Tarzan in Tarzan, the Ape Man (1959)),
a low-budget quickie that lifted most of its footage from earlier
Johnny Weissmuller movies. MGM had
him under contract for 20 months; in that time he worked 8 weeks
as "Tarzan". After that he did guest spots on a number of TV series,
finally becoming a regular on
Wagon Train (1957) as Duke
Shannon (his name was then Scott Miller). In 1965-66 he starred (as
Denny again) with Juliet Prowse in
Mona McCluskey (1965).