Antony Hamilton
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Antony Hamilton (born 4 May 1952 in Liverpool, England, died 29 March 1995 in Los Angeles, California), was an actor, model, and dancer. He was adopted by an Australian RAF-hero and his wife soon after birth and grew up on a sheep farm in Australia.
Hamilton attended Scotch College in Adelaide, Australia, where dance and ballet was a significant part of the curriculum. Hamilton proved to have a talent for ballet and, after leaving school, he began a career as a professional dancer with The Australian Ballet Company.
In 1972, during a dance tour in Europe with The Australian Ballet, he was "discovered" by a fashion photographer. This resulted in Hamilton soon after leaving the ballet and moving to the USA to pursue a career as a model. During the following 10 years, he worked extensively as a model in Europe, America, Asia and Africa, becoming a favorite subject of world-famous photographers as Richard Avedon and Brice Weber, often working with famous fashion designers such as for instance Gianni Versace, and frequently appearing in magazines such as Vogue and GQ.
After having worked for a while as a model, Hamilton also began taking acting classes, wanting to expand his career. He eventually got his big break as an actor in the American tv-series Cover Up (1984). As an actor, he is however probably best known for the role of IMF-agent Max Harte in the 1988 revival of the American tv-series Mission: Impossible, as well as for playing Samson in the 1984 television film Samson and Delilah.
In 1987, Hamilton was seriously considered for the part of James Bond in the film The Living Daylights, (and according to some even offered a formal contract), before producers eventually settled on Timothy Dalton. The reason for the producers deciding against Hamilton and withdrawing their offer of contract was apparently that they suddenly realised that Hamilton was gay. Hamilton's private life being a complete lifestyle clash to that of James Bond as a womanising heartbreaker, producers did not think that the audience would accept Hamilton in the role. Moreover, they feared the reaction in conservative audiences in the United States if they hired a gay actor for the part; they had already suffered a major media firestorm when it was discovered that Tula Cossey, an extra in For Your Eyes Only (1981), was genetically confirmed as a man.
Hamilton died in 1995 from AIDS-related pneumonia. He was sometimes credited as Tony Hamilton.
