Frank Latimore

Life and career

Latimore was born Franklin Latimore Kline in Darien, Connecticut. He came from a well-to-do family, and was able to trace his lineage back to the American Revolutionary War. He ran away from home at an early age, and shortly thereafter got the lead part in a Broadway play. He began his acting career in the 1930s, when he and longtime friend Lloyd Bridges performed in summer stock theater at a playhouse in Weston, Vermont.

Latimore then went to Hollywood where he signed a contract with 20th Century-Fox, and proceeded to appear in such hits as In the Meantime, Darling, The Dolly Sisters, Three Little Girls in Blue, and Shock.

After his years at Fox, he made films in Europe, most of which were swashbucklers such as Balboa, Conquistador of the Pacific, The Golden Falcon, Devil's Cavaliers and many others, including two Zorro films and some westerns. These were starring roles, much bigger than his Hollywood roles, to the effect that he became the darling of the swashbucklers during the late 50s and early 60s. He appeared in the French film Purple Noon, as well as in the Italian melodrama A Woman Has Killed (1952).

Latimore appeared in two soap operas, playing Dr. Ed Coleridge on Ryan's Hope from 1975 to 1976, and Dr. Emmet Scott on Guiding Light from 1976 to 1979. He did some work for PBS, most notably appearing in a film about the Civil War.

He married Rukmini Sukarno, an opera singer who was a daughter of President Sukarno of Indonesia. Their son, Chris Kline, is a journalist.

On November 29, 1998, he died in his sleep, at the age of 73. His remains were cremated and buried beneath a venerable old apple tree on ancestral property in Vermont.