Trivia of Stephen Boyd

 Trivia of Stephen Boyd (4 July 1931 - 2 June 1977)

*He was born in Ireland.At the age of 14 Boyd quit school to work and earn money to help support his family. He eventually joined the Ulster Group Theatre, where he learned the behind-the-scenes tasks of the theatre. He became well known in Belfast for his contributions as a gravel-voiced policeman on the Ulster Radio programme "The McCooeys", the story of a Belfast family written by Joseph Tomelty.

*In 1950, he made a coast-to-coast tour of America with the Clare Tree (a stage director) Major Company, performing A Streetcar Named Desire in the lead role as Stanley Kowalski. Boyd later recalled this as "the best performance I ever gave in my life".

*For his role of Messala in Ben- Hur (1959) , he had to grow a beard then when it was quite long researchers discovered that young Roman tribunes didn't have beards so it had to come off. It was the decided he should have brown eyes which meant him having to wear contact lenses to hide his blue eyes and have lifts in his shoes to make him equal height to that of Charlton Heston's 6ft 2 inch.

*Was initially cast as Marc Antony in Cleopatra (1963). When numerous delays in production eventually brought about his departure, Richard Burton took over the role.

*Stephen Boyd replaced Charlton Heston for role Livius in movie The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964).The film was starring by many famous stars like Sophia Loren, Christoper Plummer, Omar Shariff, Alec Guiness but a financial failure at the box-office.Boyd blamed the massive commercial failure of this movie for ruining his movie career.

*In 1964, Boyd was originally cast as the lead in Anthony Mann's World War II drama The Unknown Battle with co-stars Elke Sommer and Anthony Perkins.After several weeks of waiting, studio funding for the project fell through. Boyd sued director Anthony Mann for $500,000 for a breach of contract, missed time and other lost film opportunities. The project was completed by Anthony Mann a year later and released as Heroes of Telemark (1965) with Kirk Douglas replacing Boyd as the lead.

*His film with Gina Lollobrigida, Imperial Venus (1962) was the first film to be banned by the Motion Picture Association of America for male nudity. Boyd appeared in a humorous bedroom scene, naked with only his lower half covered by a bed-sheet.The suggestion of nudity was too much for the censors and the movie was never released in the United States.

*In 1976, in what would be his final interview, Boyd expressed regret at concentrating so heavily on movies and said he wished he had acted more on stage and on television.He died of a heart attack while playing golf, shortly after completing a guest-starring role on Hawaii Five-O in 1977.