French postcard by Publistar, offered by Corvisart, Epinal, no. 919. Photo: United-Press.
French postcard by Publistar, Marseille, for Corvisart, Epinal, no. 1120. Photo: Philippe d'Argence.
Man about town
George Cadogan Gardiner McKay was born in 1932 in New York City. 'Gard' was the son of ad executive Hugh Deane McKay and socialite Catherine 'Kitty' Gardner McKay. His father's business took the family to Paris, where McKay attended private schools. The family returned to the United States shortly before the outbreak of World War II.
McKay and his older brother, Hugh, lived with their grandparents in Lexington, Kentucky. He attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York for two years, where he majored in art. He wrote for The Cornell Daily Sun and the campus magazine. He dropped out of school at the age of 19 following the death of his father and moved to Greenwich Village where he worked as a sculptor and writer.
McKay also took up photography and saw some of his work published in The New York Times and Life magazine. McKay's sculpting appeared in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and at an exhibit of his work, McKay attracted the attention of photographer Richard Avedon. Avedon invited McKay to Paris to shoot a series of photographs with models Suzy Parker and Barbara Mullen, cavorting in Paris bistros and nightclubs. The photo series led to a modelling career.
Town and Country magazine did a piece on McKay and his sculptures in its 'Man About Town' section, which led to an offer from an agent. McKay impressed producer Dore Schary, who signed him to a contract with MGM. For that studio, he played in episodes of The Thin Man (1957) and appeared uncredited in the film Raintree County (Edward Dmytryk, 1957), with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.
McKay left MGM and had television guest roles on Death Valley Days (1958), The Silent Service (1958), and Jefferson Drum (1958). In 1957–1958, McKay played United States Army Lieutenant Dan Kelly in the 38-episode syndicated Western series Boots and Saddles, with co-stars Jack Pickard and Patrick McVey. At 20th Century Fox, he screen-tested for a TV series based on The Gunslinger but failed to get the role. The test did, however, net him a long-term contract at the studio.
American Arcade postcard. Gardner McKay in Adventures in Paradise (1959-1962).
An extraordinarily handsome guy
Gardner McKay was spotted at the studio coffee shop by Dominick Dunne who was searching for an actor to star in his planned TV series Adventures in Paradise. Dunne later said, "I didn't know who he was. He was an extraordinarily handsome guy. I said, 'Are you an actor?' I gave him my card and said, 'If you're interested, call me.'"
McKay called, and ten actors were tested for the role. Dunne said of McKay: "His (test) was the worst, but everybody reacted to him, I mean everybody – especially the women." Although previously unknown to the public, McKay was featured on the cover of the 6 July 1959 issue of Life just two months before the series premiered. The article noted that he had been around boats since childhood and was an experienced seaman.
His character in Adventures in Paradise, Adam Troy, is a Korean War veteran who purchased the two-masted 82-foot (25 m) schooner Tiki III and sailed the South Pacific. The show ran for three seasons on ABC from 1959–1962, for a total of 91 episodes. During the series' run, McKay had bit roles in the Fox films Holiday for Lovers (Henry Levin, 1959) with Clifton Webb and The Right Approach (David Butler, 1961) starring Frankie Vaughan.
McKay returned to Hollywood in 1963 and had a support role in Fox's The Pleasure Seekers (Jean Negulesco, 1964) starring Ann-Margret. "It took me 100 hours to become a good actor," McKay later said. "Then I committed professional suicide." McKay had just decided to end his acting career, when he got a phone call from the noted director George Cukor, offering him the opportunity to star in a romantic comedy film opposite Marilyn Monroe.
The film was Something's Got to Give. McKay had made up his mind and turned it down. Cukor and Monroe were shocked. Monroe phoned him to see if she could get him to change his mind. McKay said, "She was so delightful on the phone, so winning, so seductive in a way," but he said no. He added, "I didn’t belong in acting." The part went to Dean Martin and the film was never completed. McKay's final film was I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew (Richard L. Bare, 1968).
Vintage autograph card. Photo: Gardner McKay in Adventures in Paradise (1959-1962).
Leaving Hollywood
Gardner McKay sailed in the Caribbean and South America for a year and a half. "Not doing anything really," he said later. "I didn't give myself an excuse for being there." He moved to Paris, where he had lived as a boy. McKay left Hollywood to pursue his interest in photography, sculpture, and writing. Besides holding individual exhibitions, he exhibited his sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
His lifeboat rescue photographs of the Andrea Doria were published internationally. McKay wrote many plays and novels and was a literary critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner between 1977 and 1982. He taught writing classes at the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, the University of Alaska, and the University of Hawaii.
He co-directed and wrote the TV film Me (Gardner McKay, Allan Muir, 1973) and wrote the script for another TV movie, Sea Marks (Ron Maxwell, Steven Robman, 1976), based on his play 'Sea Marks'. His play 'Toyer' was produced by the Arena Players Repertory Theater in New York in 1993 and in London at the Arts Theatre in 2009. Gardner bought a wooded property in Beverly Hills and kept a menagerie of animals including lions, cheetahs, dogs, and a monkey which he brought back from his sojourn to South America.
McKay's awards included three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships for playwriting, the Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, and the Sidney Carrington Prize. He was a winner of the Canadian Regional Drama Festival and runner-up in the Hemingway Short Story Contest. Gardner McKay settled in Hawaii, where he died in Honolulu from prostate cancer in 2001 at the age of 69.
He was survived by his wife since 1980, Madeleine Madigan, a painter, and two children, son Tristan and daughter Liza. Gardner is buried in Kentucky. Gardner Mckay is immortalised in the Jimmy Buffett song 'We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About' (1983) that appeared on his 'One Particular Harbour' album with the line "Hey hey, Gardner McKay... Take us on the Leaky Tiki with you... Clear skies bound for Shanghai".
French promotion card. Photo: G. Neuvecelle / Columbia / EMI. Sent by mail from Martinique to France in 1965.
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
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