A great con-man, that's what he really is. When asked about it now, he blinks in apparent bewilderment then goes, Federal case?, Hamilton, who befriended Imelda when he participated in her countrys attempt to create a Southeast Asian answer to Cannes, has remained a fan of the notorious spendthrift. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles G. LaBella, a New York prosecutor, said the Marcoses used Hamilton as a front to move money out of the Philippines. Actor George Hamilton said Imelda Marcos saved his mother's life by inviting the despondent woman to the Philippines after Hamilton's brother died. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Column: Did the DOJ just say Donald Trump can be held accountable for Jan. 6? Interviews, testimony and court records--some of which were part of the massive evidence introduced in the New York case--also cast new light on the long-acknowledged relationship between the actor and Madam Marcos. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Memphis-born George Stevens Hamilton, 51, arrived in Hollywood at age 19 with a state acting award from Florida. Ramos said he could not remember the names of the men who picked up the $5.5 million. Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter. He produced and played the title role in Evel Knievel (1971). Rich L.A. homeowners are snapping them up, Elliott: Kings use their heads over hearts in trading Jonathan Quick, Federal Reserve officials sound warnings about higher rates, White House cyber plan would hold software companies liable for attacks, Silvergate warns of more losses, viability of its business after crypto crisis, Justice Dept. Hamilton, 51, has acknowledged publicly that he received many gifts from Mrs. Marcos, who he met in 1979 while visiting Manila to promote a movie. Prosecutors contend that Mrs. Marcos, on trial here for fraud and racketeering, looted her nations wealth and spent it to satisfy a voracious appetite for art, jewelry and Manhattan real estate. Mrs. Tantoco, who owns a department store in Manila, was charged with Mrs. Marcos but is a fugitive. This story has been shared 60,063 times. Actor George Hamilton has been described by federal authorities as an unindicted co-conspirator of former Philippines first lady Imelda Marcos, a newspaper reported today. In 2006, it was rumored that Hamilton would replace Bob Barker on The Price Is Right. A whirlwind courtship would follow, with high-profile dates at the Sugar Bowl and Mardi Gras, followed by Easter at the LBJ ranch. Philippine journalist Kristina M. Luz contributed to this story. (When I took out Woodrow Wilsons daughter, they didnt make such a fuss, presenter Milton Berle joked.). He returned to MGM to make Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! 18,198, This story has been shared 13,816 times. The actor would cite extreme hardship to dependents as a reason for not serving, since Hamilton was supposedly supporting his mother and, for a time, his two brothers. He also acted as a financial adviser to her, the Times reported. Its not the spray tan Im after, he revealed in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2017. When he said I shall return, (it) was based on his own decision that he wanted to bring this large invasion force to the doorstep of the woman that he loved, the actor said. In March, 1983, Hamilton flew to Hong Kong to pick up personally $5.5 million from a Tantoco bank account. It was directed by Louis Malle who cast Hamilton on the strength of his performance in Two Weeks in Another Town. (To this day, I can take a bullwhip, he boasts, and cut a cigarette in half.) More crucially, Hamilton armed with good looks, easy charm and a given name so WASPy it almost seemed a put-on couldnt have been more game to participate in what would prove to be the old studio publicity machine. Hamilton, an unindicted co-conspirator testifying under a grant of immunity, acknowledged under prosecution questioning that he had received a $5.5-million loan from a Philippine businesswoman and close associate of Mrs. Marcos. Work phones make a comeback as offices ban WhatsApp, TikTok, Stocks jump as Wall Street cruises to best day since January, Car debt piles up as more Americans owe thousands more than vehicles are worth, Chicken-flavored ice cream? He appeared on such shows as The Veil (playing an Indian), The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, The Donna Reed Show, and Cimarron City. For the second time, he portrayed a murderer on the television series Columbo, starring as the host of a TV true-crime show in the 1991 episode "Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous to Your Health". This was something that several months ago he was told he would have to have, his rep told E! In a voice choked with emotion, Hamilton described his brothers long and futile battle with kidney and liver disease and said that Mrs. Marcos invited his despondent mother, Ann Hamilton, to visit the Philippines after his death. Hes an author, every so often, of fizzy ghostwritten books. He was in Meet Wally Sparks (1997), 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (1997), and the miniseries Rough Riders (1997), where he portrayed William Randolph Hearst. Hamilton, who has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, could testify as early as this afternoon. But previously sealed court documents and other financial records recently obtained by The Times further reveal that the actor and the widow of Ferdinand E. Marcos did business together--and that Hamilton was used, perhaps unwittingly, in the historic looting of the Philippine treasury by the Marcoses. Minnesota officer removes jar from raccoon's head. At age 66 and recovering from knee injuries, Hamilton, unable to match the limber dance moves of his younger competitors, charmed the audience and judges with endearingly silly dances that used props, including a Zorro mask and the sword from Zorro, The Gay Blade. But the newly released court documents and other related records trace the $12 million from secret Marcos accounts in the Philippines, through Hamilton investments in the United States, to foreign banks and offshore shell companies associated with the Marcoses. That issue is of particular importance to prosecutors because of defense assertions that millions of dollars allegedly diverted from the Philippine treasury by Mrs. Marcos and her late husband, former Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos, were used to fight communist rebels and to further other official policies of the government. 88". And while Hamilton, who dated the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Danielle Steel and Britt Ekland, isnt currently romantically attached, hes quick to qualify: I have dates. Indeed, it was on the way to a dinner rendezvous a few months ago at industry hangout Craigs a regular spot where he can often be found with pals Robert Wagner, Tom Jones, Sugar Ray Leonard and Sylvie Vartan that he and a companion ended up in a Bentley-on-Bentley wreck. He played the roles from November 21, 2001 to February 17, 2002; June 04, 2002 to July 29, 2002; and from September 14, 2007 to October 07, 2007. Photo by 9EkieraM1 CC BY-SA 3.0. He appeared in the TV movie The Last of the Powerseekers (1973), and had a supporting role in The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, starring Burt Reynolds (1973). Also mentioned in that song are Muammar Gaddafi, George Hamilton and Zedong Mao. Lynda Bird Johnson Robb at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2018. He brought the then-22-year-old presidential daughter to the Academy Awards that year. "Tighten Up, Vol. He summoned beauty expert extraordinaire, George Masters, to his home to oversee Johnsons hair and makeup for the big event, knowing the cameras would be zeroing in on the couple. Both mother and brother harbored dreams of stardom. His notable films include Home from the Hill (1960), By Love Possessed (1961), Light in the Piazza (1962), Your Cheatin' Heart (1964), Once Is Not Enough (1975), Love at First Bite (1979), Zorro, The Gay Blade (1981), The Godfather Part III (1990), Doc Hollywood (1991), 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (1997), Hollywood Ending (2002), and The Congressman (2016). 18,169, This story has been shared 13,785 times. The president, he says, was always a performer in his own mind like Hamilton himself. An unindicted co-conspirator is someone who prosecutors claim took some step that advanced a conspiracy but is not charged with a crime. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images Some of the Marcos money could have been invested in that enterprise, investigators said. Additional Philippine funds financed Hamilton real estate investments, including a Mississippi plantation and his former Benedict Canyon home, built by screen legend Charlie Chaplin. It was on his first trip to Manila that Hamilton also met two prominent Filipino business figures: Antonio O. Floirendo and Gliceria (Glecy) Tantoco, the latter regarded as the most intimate of Mrs. Marcos inner circle known as the Blue Ladies. (The name came from the color of the dresses they wore as volunteers in Marcos election campaigns.). Imelda Romualdez-Marcos with former President Ferdinand Marcos and family during the 1965 inauguration It was during the 1965 campaign that Imelda became influential as a political figure at the national level, supporting her husband's political tactics through her charismatic appeal and youth. Imelda's commentary is complemented by archival footage of her glamorous jet-setting first lady years, including meetings with Nixon, Reagan, Gaddafi and Mao (who, she says, praised her for . The actor said he had met Mrs. Marcos in the late 1970s when he visited the Philippines during a world tour to promote his movie Love at First Bite, a comedy in which he played a vampire. He also said that when he was linked to the Marcoses in the past, he received anonymous death threats. Imelda Marcos is accused in pending civil suits of converting billions of public dollars into private wealth during her late husbands 20-year rule over the Philippines. There were no hard feelings, though. Thats not the purpose of being here. Yet as a peddler, his most prominent pop culture moment has been his big-budget commercial turns as the KFC Colonel, appearing on a branded yacht cruising through crystal-clear skies, talking up a double-breaded chicken sandwich thats extra-crispy, like me. (Hamilton says he dug deep on the role, recalling meeting Colonel Harland Sanders when the two crossed paths while both were handling respective press duties at an Ohio radio station four decades ago.). He focused on television: Malibu (1983) and Two Fathers' Justice (1985). I just played into it, Hamilton says, grinning. [33], Hamilton has a well-known social relationship with Imelda Marcos, widow of former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, and had business ties to the Marcos family. It was all above board.. NEW YORK -- Actor George Hamilton, reportedly an unindicted co-conspirator in the Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos fraud case, said Monday he was just a friend of the couple and 'there was. Look up: The 32 most spectacular ceilings in Los Angeles, Best coffee city in the world? In public testimony and in his previously sealed deposition, taken in 1987 as part of a Philippine government lawsuit against the Marcoses, the actor acknowledged only a social relationship with the Marcoses and repeatedly denied having any business links with the woman he commonly refers to as Madam Marcos.. The Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. With his matinee-idol looks, it was sometimes noted that Hamilton physically resembled Warren Beatty. He was a semi-regular celebrity guest on the 1998-1999 syndicated version of Match Game. His takeaway was Teenys and Bills devout commitment to glamour as a way of life: It took the mundane out of the world., Brother David, whom Hamilton frequently visits in Palm Beach, describes the perspective that Teeny and Bill shared as a philosophy of optimism, a looking for the best out of life, to make it adventurous rather than dull. While never poor, mother and brothers were at times broke which they saw as temporary, a bad hand in a poker game as Teeny teetered from one supportive suitor to the next. March 2 (UPI) -- A Florida woman earned a Guinness World Record when she completed 23 ultra-marathon runs -- 31.1 miles -- in a 23-day period. On another day, reclining on the cream sofa in the Wilshire Corridor high-rise condo where hes lived since 2008, his untucked dress shirt unbuttoned halfway to his navel, Hamilton is expansive. Though she would go on to marry and divorce Rod Stewart, she and Hamilton remain close. [31], As a contestant in I'm A Celebrity in 2009, Hamilton revealed he had dated at least four Miss Worlds. His first film role was a lead, Crime and Punishment U.S.A. (1959), directed by Denis Sanders. Then the kid turned to Hamilton and wondered if he, too, was an actor. Marketed as a secret formula, it included a self-tanning exfoliating scrub and bronzer. Mrs. Marcos is charged with racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud and obstruction. However, as more than a few reporters were quick to point out, his mothers fourth husband was an heir to the Spalding sporting goods fortune, and she lived in high style in Beverly Hills, with a butler, cook, and gardener at her beck and call. Ramos told them he turned it over to two swarthy men--presumably Filipinos. He said he acted on instructions from Mrs. Tantoco, the agent for Mrs. Marcos. Los Angeles Times (June 29, 1965: C8. [7] Reports put his fee around this time at $100,000 per movie. But these days, as his life arcs through its final act, and so many of the fellow players who shared in those stories with him are gone, Hamilton acknowledges a certain wistfulness. For United Artists, he supported Lana Turner in thr melodrama By Love Possessed (1961). Hes uniquely qualified to assess the countrys only better-known perma-tanner, Donald Trump. The Method-trained thespian replied that, actually, he was an actor. Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. . The song soon became a popular and much-recorded jazz standard, described as "without doubt one of the finest songs the composer ever wrote I just knew him as an amazing character and never did any form of business of any kind with Adnan, explains Hamilton. But it was the couples appearance at the 1966 Oscars that really got tongues wagging. Hamilton was cast, and the film was popular. Well, kind of, Video shows Memphis jailers beating Black inmate before his death, Skin lesion removed from President Bidens chest last month was cancerous, doctor says, Desperate mountain residents trapped by snow beg for help; We are coming, sheriff says, Newsom, IRS give Californians until October to file tax returns, Before and after photos from space show storms effect on California reservoirs. 'The statements are untrue,' Hamilton said Thursday through his spokesman, Michael Sherman, who also made a point of denying as 'categorically untrue' rumors linking the actor and Mrs. Marcos. Mrs. Gomez said that Mrs. Tantocos son, Bienvenido Tantoco Jr., told her in the spring of 1984 that his mother was in charge of four New York buildings owned by F.L. She testified that F.L. stood for first lady and referred to Mrs. Marcos. Bernstein said in an interview, however: I was totally directed by Imelda in this. March 3 (UPI) -- A Massachusetts library said a book was recently returned with a note apologizing for the tome being 56 years overdue. Hamilton played a cat burglar in MGM's Jack of Diamonds (1967). Hamilton declined to be interviewed for this story after his attorneys lost a strenuous legal battle to keep sealed hundreds of pages of records and testimony. The 1966 Academy Awards were brimming with star power. And although the $12 million in Hamilton transactions represent only a fraction of the $5 billion that the Marcoses are suspected of bleeding from their nations economy, the transactions are regarded by federal investigators as typical Marcos deals.. Theyre given an unusual amount of credibility, he says. 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