LOS ANGELES -- Cornel Wilde, a major Hollywood star and Oscar nominee in the mid-1940s but best known for his classic good looks and swashbuckling roles in a series of 'B' movies, died only a few weeks after being diagnosed with leukemia. He had turned 74 last Friday.
Wilde died Monday morning with his son, Cornel Wilde Jr., at his bedside, a spokeswoman for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said. He was diagnosed with the blood disease in early August and had been undergoing chemotherapy since being admitted to the hospital Aug. 29, said Colleen Conte, his fiancee.
'He really believed (the chemotherapy) would cure him and he chose that instead of just going home and surviving maybe four more months,' said Conte, the widow of actor Richard Conte and Wilde's companion the past six years. 'I'm sorry he chose what he did because he went very fast.'
Conte said Wilde, who had undergone heart surgery and a hip replacement in recent years, was 'very weak but in a good mood' at a small birthday party at the hospital. Conte said she set their wedding date while he was hospitalized 'to make him feel better.'
Wilde was born in New YorkCity on Oct. 13, 1915. While a student at the Columbia College of Physicians, he worked as a toy salesman at Macy's, as a commercial artist and as an advertising salesman. After appearing in some summer stock productions, he abandoned his plans to become a surgeon in 1935 to become a full-time actor.
In addition to medical school, Wilde also gave up his membership on the U.S. fencing team that was preparing for the 1936 Olympics. Hired as a fencing instructor and given a featured role in the Laurence Olivier stage production of 'Romeo and Juliet,' Wilde found himself in Hollywood, where some of the play's rehearsals were held.
He was offered a studio contract, and after a series of 'B' movies, Wilde got his break and became an overnight success in 1945 in the role of French composer Frederic Chopin in 'A Song to Remember,' a highly acclaimed film biography that earned him an Academy Award nomination for best actor.
Wilde went on to star in several more 'A' pictures, but by the early 1950s he was back in the 'B's,' making action pictures in which he often played a dueling swashbuckler, banking on an athletic physique and his skill with a sword.
Wilde was cast in such costume pictures as 'Lady with Red Hair,' 'High Sierra,' 'A Song to Remember,' 'The Bandit of Sherwood Forest,' 'Forever Amber' and 'The Greatest Show on Earth.'
Frustrated by bad scripts and what he saw as a sameness to the roles he was being offered, Wilde formed his own production company, Theodora Productions, with his second wife, Jean Wallace, in 1955. They made such films as 'The Naked Prey,' in which he spent much of the movie wearing only a loincloth as savages pursued him as though he was a lion.
He also made one of the first films dealing with pollution of the environment, 'No Blade of Grass' in 1970. Other films, such as 'Beach Red' and The Big Combo,' were criticized for being too violent for the times.
Wilde, who spoke several languages and who learned fencing while living in Europe with his father, played in celebrity tennis tournaments into his 70s.
His first wife was actress Patricia Knight. He is survived by his son, whom he called C.W.; a daughter, Wendy Wilde of San Francisco, and two stepsons.
Wilde's body will be cremated and a memorial service is tentatively set for Oct. 28 at Westwood Village Mortuary.
