Gene Raymond Biography

Fast Facts

• Won the Legion of Merit for flying jets into South Vietnam on high-priority missions as a colonel in the Air Force Reserve in 1967
• Was the president of the Motion Picture and Television Fund
• Was the vice president of the Arthritis Foundation
• Served as a board member of the Screen Actors Guild and Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
• Served as president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Air Force Association
• His idyllic, 28-year marriage to singing star Jeanette MacDonald was highly publicized
• Received his education at the Professional Children's School
• Was 5 when he made his theatrical debut and 12 when he got his first Broadway role
• After his film career waned, he worked steadily in television, opened his own production company and hosted "Fireside Theatre․"
• Played the romantic leading man in several films in the 1930s and 1940s
• Served as a pilot in the B-17 bomber group that inaugurated precision bombing