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Biography
Fairbanks was born in New York City, the son of actor Douglas Fairbanks and his first wife, Anna Beth Sully. His parents divorced when he was ten years old. He lived with his mother in California, Paris and London.
Hollywood
Largely on the basis of his name, he was given a contract at age fourteen with Paramount Pictures. After making some undistinguished films, he took to the stage, where he impressed his father, his step-mother Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, who encouraged him to continue with acting.
First marriage
He was also noticed by Joan Crawford who began to date him. On June 3, 1929, in Saint Malachy's Roman Catholic Church in New York, New York Crawford and Fairbanks were married. He was technically underage, so one year was added to his birth (giving him 1908 as his year of birth) and Crawford shed three years from her age, which would remain shed until long after her death, giving her the same year of birth that Fairbanks had created for himself, 1908!!
He went on a delayed honeymoon to England, where he was entertained by Noel Coward and George, Duke of Kent. He became active in both society and politics, but Crawford didn't enjoy either of these, and they were divorced in May 1933.
Fairbanks starred in several pictures with Loretta Young. With Little Caesar, Outward Bound, Gunga Din and The Dawn Patrol, his movies began to have more commercial success.
Second marriage
On April 22, 1939, he married Mary Lee Hartford (née Mary Lee Epling), a former wife of George Huntington Hartford, the Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company heir: they had three daughters. Mary Lee Fairbanks died of cancer in 1988. Three years later, on May 30, 1991, he married Vera Shelton at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City.
World War II
In 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed him a special envoy to South America.
Although celebrated as an actor, Fairbanks most enduring legacy was a well-kept secret for decades. At the onset of World War II, Fairbanks was commissioned a Reserve Officer in the U.S. Navy and assigned to Lord Mountbatten's Commando staff in England.
Having witnessed (and participated in) British training and cross-channel harrassment operations emphasizing the military art of deception, Fairbanks attained a depth of undestanding and appreciation of military deception then in the United States Navy. Lieutenant Fairbanks was subsequently transferred to Virginia Beach where he came under the command of Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, who was preparing U.S. Naval forces for the invasion of North Africa.
Fairbanks was able to convince Hewitt of the advantages of such a unit, and Admiral Hewitt soon took Fairbanks to Washington, D.C. to sell the idea to the Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Ernest King. Fairbanks succeeded and ADM King issued a secret letter on 5 March 1943 charging the Vice Chief of Naval Operations with the recruitment of 180 officers and 300 enlisted men for the Beach Jumper program.
The Beach Jumpers mission would simulate amphibious landings with a very limited force. Operating dozens of kilometers from the actual landing beaches and utilizing their deception equipment, the Beach Jumpers would lure the enemy into believing that theirs was the location of the amphibious beach landing, when in fact the actual amphibious landing would be conducted at another location. Even if the enemy was less than 100-percent convinced of the deception, the uncertainty created by the operations could conceivably delay enemy reinforcement of the actual landing area by several crucial hours.
U.S. Navy Beach Jumpers saw their initial action in Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily. Throughout the remainder of the war, the Beach Jumpers conducted their hazardous, shallow-water operations throughout the Mediterranean.
For his planning the diversion-deception operations and his part in the amphibious assault on Southern France, Lieutenant Commander Fairbanks was awarded the U.S. Navy's Legion of Merit with bronze V (for valor), the ItalianWar Cross for Military Valor, the French Legion d'Honneur and the Croix de Guerre with Palm and the British Distinguished Service Cross. He was also made an Honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) in 1949.
It is not a stretch to say that Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was the father of the United States Navy's Information Operations. As for the Beach Jumpers, they changed names several times in the decades following World War II, expanded their focus, and are currently known as the Navy Information Operations Command.
Many of the Navy's most important information operations since World War II remain classified, but it is clear that the U.S. military retains its interest in this art of war.
Death
Fairbanks, Jr. returned to Hollywood at the conclusion of World War II and enjoyed success as host of the Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Theater in the early years of television.
He died of a heart attack in New York at the age of 90. He is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California, in the same crypt as his father.
Legacy
Fairbanks has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for motion pictures at 6318 Hollywood Boulevard and one for television at 6665 Hollywood Boulevard.
Trivia
It has been claimed that Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was one of the naked men in the incriminating photos which were used as evidence in the divorce trial of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll.
Filmography
Stella Dallas - 1925
Our Modern Maidens - 1929 (with then wife Joan Crawford)
The Jazz Age - 1929
Little Caesar - 1931
Morning Glory - 1933
Catherine the Great - 1934
The Prisoner of Zenda - 1937
Gunga Din - 1939
Angels Over Broadway - 1940
The Corsican Brothers - 1941
Sinbad the Sailor - 1947
The Exile - 1947
The Fighting O'Flynn - 1949
State Secret - 1950
Ghost Story - 1981
