--- name: "Van Heflin" canonical: "https://film.one/person/van-heflin" roles: ["Actor"] born: "13 December 1910" died: "23 July 1971" reviewed_on_fi1m: 2 average_fi1m_score: 70 average_as: "actor" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-20T05:21:49.391105+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Van Heflin Actor. Born 13 December 1910 in Walters, Oklahoma, USA. Died 23 July 1971. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 13 December 1910, Walters, Oklahoma, USA - **Died:** 23 July 1971 - **Active:** 1953–1970 - **Also known as:** Emmett Evan Heflin Jr., ون هفلین - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar (1 won) - **Average Fi1m score:** 70, as actor, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 1950s 83 (1), 1970s 56 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Heflin, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q350678, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001336/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/18803 ## Streaming the US now - **Apple TV:** [*Shane*](https://film.one/film/shane.md) (83) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Van Heflin > Van Heflin played the man the story is not about: the husband, the rancher, the fellow at the next table. He did it with a stubborn plainness other actors could not fake, and in *Shane* it is the best thing on screen. In *Shane* (1953) there is a moment when Joe Starrett notices his wife watching the hired man wash at the pump. Van Heflin does not narrow his eyes or square his shoulders. He lets Joe see it, understand it and go on trusting her, and the whole decision passes across his face as something closer to tiredness than jealousy. Nobody praises this kind of acting, because it looks like a man standing in his own yard. It was Heflin's trade for more than thirty years, and he was better at it than almost anyone. He came to films from Broadway, where he had been working since 1928, and made his debut in *A Woman Rebels* (1936) opposite Katharine Hepburn, who had noticed him on stage. MGM found a use for him as the second man in the frame, most visibly as Jeff Hartnett in *Johnny Eager* (1942). The war took him away as a combat cameraman between 1943 and 1945, and when he came back the parts got darker. *The Strange Love of Martha Ivers* (1946) put him opposite Barbara Stanwyck, the first of three films they made together, and *The Prowler* (1951) let him play a corrupt policeman with the same steady manner he used for the honest ones. He left MGM in 1949 and worked freelance from then on, which is how he ended up on a homestead for George Stevens and, in *3:10 to Yuma* (1957), as Dan Evans, the rancher. After that the parts shrank, and his last was D. O. Guerrero in *Airport* (1970). He knew what he was and what he was not. "Louis B. Mayer once looked at me and said, 'You will never get the girl at the end.' So I worked on my acting." He never did become a leading man of the first rank; his face was ordinary and the studios cast him accordingly, and there are stretches of the career where he is plainly better than the part. But the ordinariness is the point. Put him beside Alan Ladd's pale buckskin stillness and Heflin looks like the only man in the valley who has ever lifted anything heavy. We found, watching *Shane* again, that we cared more about whether Joe kept his fences than whether Shane ever drew, and that is Heflin's doing: he plays Joe as stubborn, decent and a little slow, a man who knows he is being outshone at his own kitchen table and refuses to be small about it. What he could not do was surprise you. The self-contempt in his crooked men and the resolve in his straight ones come from the same refusal to make either look attractive, and once you have seen it you can see it coming. That is a small complaint against an actor who was so rarely false. Start with *Shane*, and this time watch the husband. ## On Fi1m (2) - *Airport* (1970), Fi1m 56, as D. O. Guerrero — [page](https://film.one/film/airport.md) - *Shane* (1953), Fi1m 83, as Joe Starrett — [page](https://film.one/film/shane.md) ## Complete filmography (70) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *That's Entertainment!* (1974), as (archive footage) (uncredited) - *The Last Child* (1971), as Senator Quincy George - *Airport* (1970), as D. O. Guerrero — Fi1m 56, [page](https://film.one/film/airport.md) - *The Big Bounce* (1969), as Sam Mirakian - *Certain Honorable Men* (1968), as Champ Donohue - *A Case of Libel* (1968), as Robert Sloane - *The Ruthless Four* (1968), as Sam Cooper - *The Man Outside* (1967), as Bill MacLean - *Stagecoach* (1966), as Marshal Curly Wilcox - *Pro Football: Mayhem on a Sunday Afternoon* (1965), Actor - *The Teen-Age Revolution* (1965), as Narrator/Host - *Once a Thief* (1965), as Inspector Mike Vido - *The Greatest Story Ever Told* (1965), as Bar Amand - *The Bold Men* (1965), as Narrator - *Cry of Battle* (1963), as Joe Trent - *Ricochet* (1961), as Sergeant Paul Maxon - *The Wastrel* (1961), as Duncan Bell - *Under Ten Flags* (1960), as Captain Bernhard Rogge - *Five Branded Women* (1960), as Velko - *They Came to Cordura* (1959), as Sgt. John Chawk - *Tempest* (1958), as Emelyan Pugachov - *Gunman's Walk* (1958), as Lee Hackett - *The Dark Side of the Earth* (1957), as Col. Sten - *3:10 to Yuma* (1957), as Dan Evans - *Playhouse 90* (1956), series, as Bill Kilcoyne, Captain - *Patterns* (1956), as Fred Staples - *Count Three and Pray* (1955), as Luke Fargo - *Battle Cry* (1955), as Major Sam Huxley - *Black Widow* (1954), as Peter Denver - *Woman's World* (1954), as Jerry Talbot - *The Raid* (1954), as Maj. Neal Benton - *Tanganyika* (1954), as John Gale - *Wings of the Hawk* (1953), as Irish Gallager - *Shane* (1953), as Joe Starrett — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/film/shane.md) - *South of Algiers* (1953), as Nicholas Chapman - *My Son John* (1952), as Stedman - *Hallmark Hall of Fame* (1951), series, as Joseph - *Week-End with Father* (1951), as Brad Stubbs - *The Prowler* (1951), as Webb Garwood - *Tomahawk* (1951), as Bridger - *Robert Montgomery Presents* (1950), series, as Dr. Martin Arrowsmith - *University U.S.A.* (1950), as Narrator - *East Side, West Side* (1949), as Mark Dwyer - *Madame Bovary* (1949), as Charles Bovary - *Act of Violence* (1949), as Frank R. Enley - *The Secret Land* (1948), as Narrator - *The Three Musketeers* (1948), as Athos - *Tap Roots* (1948), as Keith Alexander - *B.F.'s Daughter* (1948), as Thomas W. 'Tom' Brett - *Possessed* (1947), as David Sutton - *Green Dolphin Street* (1947), as Timothy Haslam - *Till the Clouds Roll By* (1946), as James I. Hessler - *The Strange Love of Martha Ivers* (1946), as Sam Masterson - *Land and Live in the Desert* (1945), as Narrator (voice) - *Land and Live in the Jungle* (1944), as 1st Lieutenant Lynn Harrison - *Presenting Lily Mars* (1943), as John Thornway - *Tennessee Johnson* (1942), as Andrew Johnson - *Seven Sweethearts* (1942), as Henry Taggart - *Grand Central Murder* (1942), as 'Rocky' Custer - *Kid Glove Killer* (1942), as Gordon McKay - *Johnny Eager* (1941), as Jeff Hartnett - *H.M. Pulham, Esq.* (1941), as Bill King - *The Feminine Touch* (1941), as Elliott Morgan - *Santa Fe Trail* (1940), as Rader - *Back Door to Heaven* (1939), as John Shelley - *Saturday's Heroes* (1937), as Val - *Annapolis Salute* (1937), as Clay V. Parker - *Flight from Glory* (1937), as George Wilson - *The Outcasts of Poker Flat* (1937), as Rev. Samuel Woods - *A Woman Rebels* (1936), as Lord Gerald Waring Gaythorne ## Gallery - ![Studio publicity still.](https://film.one/media/person/1237773/gallery-f7a679d8aa42.jpg) Studio publicity still. — Studio publibity still., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/24/Heflin%2C_Van_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-Heflin%2C_Van_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Studio publicity still.](https://film.one/media/person/1237773/gallery-869533d0a334.jpg) Studio publicity still. — Studio publibity still., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Heflin%2C_Van.jpg/1280px-Heflin%2C_Van.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Van Heflin](https://film.one/media/person/1237773/gallery-cd70cbe64e4d.jpg) Van Heflin — Clarence Sinclair Bull, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Van_Heflin_-_1941.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) - ![Kay Francis and Van Heflin in Feminine Touch, 1941. Original 1941 Doubleweight MGM Photo](https://film.one/media/person/1237773/gallery-0f61615896e0.jpg) Kay Francis and Van Heflin in Feminine Touch, 1941. Original 1941 Doubleweight MGM Photo — MGM, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Kay_Francis_and_Van_Heflin_in_%27Feminine_Touch%27%2C_1941.jpg/1280px-Kay_Francis_and_Van_Heflin_in_%27Feminine_Touch%27%2C_1941.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail) - ![Van Heflin](https://film.one/media/person/1237773/gallery-71ad5cefe8eb.jpg) Van Heflin — Image via TMDB - ![Van Heflin](https://film.one/media/person/1237773/gallery-536b556a83f4.jpg) Van Heflin — Image via TMDB - ![Van Heflin](https://film.one/media/person/1237773/gallery-e718d619c7c3.jpg) Van Heflin — Image via TMDB - ![Lizabeth Scott and Van Heflin in the film The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) - cropped screenshot](https://film.one/media/person/1237773/gallery-674f287ceeda.jpg) Lizabeth Scott and Van Heflin in the film The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) - cropped screenshot — film screenshot (Paramount Pictures), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/The_Strange_Love_of_Martha_Ivers_1.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled) ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 1 won - 1943: Best Supporting Actor (won), for *Johnny Eager* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/van-heflin