Biography
David Hedison was an American film, television and stage actor. Born Albert David Hedison Jr. in Providence, Rhode Island, he began his career billed as Al Hedison and later changed his professional name at the insistence of NBC for the 1959 series Five Fingers.
He trained at Brown University, the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actors Studio. Hedison appeared in The Fly (1958) and starred as Captain Lee Crane in the television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964–1968). He played CIA agent Felix Leiter in the James Bond films Live and Let Die (1973) and Licence to Kill (1989), becoming the first actor to reprise the role.
Hedison died in Los Angeles in 2019.
