Denny Miller(1934-2014)
- Actor
Dennis Linn "Denny" Miller was born in Bloomington, Indiana, where his father, Ben Miller, was a phys-ed instructor at Indiana University. Denny and his brother Kent began playing basketball from childhood.
The Miller family left Bloomington when Denny was in fourth grade. He and Kent played basketball in Silver Spring, Maryland, and in 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 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).
The Miller family left Bloomington when Denny was in fourth grade. He and Kent played basketball in Silver Spring, Maryland, and in 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 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).
