John Gavin

As the Screen Actors Guild nominating committee's choice for president in 1971, 1st Vice-President John Gavin and his fellow candidates faced something the Guild had never witnessed before. With the exception of one of the 1-year Board seats, one or more independent candidates were challenging all the nominating committee's choices, running for each of the 22 available officer and Board positions. The 6' 4" John Gavin was born in Los Angeles as John Golenor. His mother was Mexican, and he became fluent in Spanish. Before becoming a professional actor in 1956, he was a Line, Air, and Intelligence officer in the United States Navy. Before his 1971 election as Guild President he had appeared in films like Psycho, Midnight Lace, Romanoff and Juliet, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Pedro Paramo and The Madwoman of Chaillot. He also starred in two short-lived television series: the comedy-western Destry (1964) and the naval adventure series Convoy (1965). As Guild President, in 1972, he testified before the Federal Trade Commission on phony talent rackets; met with President Richard Nixon to present to problem of excessive television reruns; presented petitions to the federal government on issues of prime-time access rules, legislative assistance for American motion pictures (to combat Runaway Production), and film production by the government using non-professional actors. 1972: speaks at Annual Meeting 1973 brought changes for the Guild: Jack Dales, Executive Secretary since the end of 1943, retired at the first of the year to be succeeded by Chester "Chet" Migden, and by the end of the year Gavin became the first incumbent Guild president to be defeated by an independent challenger. In May 1981, nearly 8 years after his final term as Guild president, Gavin was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, nominated for the post by another former Guild president-newly-elected President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Gavin is founder/chairman of Gamma Holdings, an international capital and consulting firm. He served on the boards of: Causeway Capital (Chairman); Claxson Interactive Group (an integrated provider of branded entertainment in Ibero-America); The Hotchkis & Wiley Funds (Chairman); and The TCW Funds. He is also Senior Counselor to Hicks Trans American Partners (a division of Hicks Holdings). Prior to that, he was a Managing Director and partner of HMTF (Latin America), President of Univisa Satellite Corporation, and an officer of Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), as well as a director of that company and other major corporations. He has served on various pro bono boards, including: The Anderson Graduate School or Management at UCLA; Don Bosco Institute; the FEDCO Charitable Fund (administered by the California Community Foundation); The Hoover Institution; Loyola-Marymount University; The National Park Foundation; The Southwest Museum; The University of the Americas; and Villanova Preparatory School. Ambassador Gavin is a fifth-generation native of Los Angeles. He is married to Constance Towers. They have four children and three grandchildren. He married the actress Cicely Evans in 1957. They had two children, Cristina and Maria, and were divorced in 1965. He had been married to Ms. Towers since 1974. She had two children from a previous marriage, Michael and Maureen McGrath.