William Rukard Hurd Hatfield (December 7, 1917 – December 26, 1998) was an American actor. He was known for playing handsome, narcissistic young men, most notably Dorian Gray in the film The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945).
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Early life
Hatfield was born in New York City to William Henry Hatfield (died 1954), an attorney who served as deputy attorney general for New York, and his wife, Adele. He graduated from Boonton High School in 1937 and was inducted in 1996 as a member of the school's inaugural hall of fame. He was educated at Columbia University, then moved to London, where he studied drama and began acting in theatre.
Career
Hatfield returned to the U.S. for his film debut in Dragon Seed (1944), in which he and his co-stars (Katharine Hepburn, Akim Tamiroff, Aline MacMahon, Turhan Bey) portrayed Chinese peasants, some more convincingly than others. Hatfield's second film, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), made him a star. As Oscar Wilde's ageless anti-hero, Hatfield received widespread acclaim for his dark good looks as much as for his acting ability. However, the actor was ambivalent about the role and his performance. "The film didn't make me popular in Hollywood," he commented later. "It was too odd, too avant-garde, too ahead of its time. The decadence, the hints of bisexuality and so on, made me a leper! Nobody knew I had a sense of humour, and people wouldn't even have lunch with me."
