David Hedison Felix Leiter in two James Bond films, "Live and Let Die" and "Licence to Kill". Hedison decided he wanted to be an actor after he saw Tyrone Power in the film "Blood and Sand". Hedison enlisted in the United States Navy in 1945, but the war ended before he completed basic training. He served 18 months, then mustered out. He began his acting career with the Sock and Buskin Players at Brown University before moving to New York to study with Sanford Meisner and Martha Graham at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre and with Lee Strasberg at the
David Hedison Actors Studio. He acted at Newport Casino Theatre. In 1951 he won a Barter Theatre Award for most promising young actor, entitling him to work at a theatre in Virginia. He did radio in North Carolina and worked on stage in Pittsburgh. His work on the New York stage includes an appearance in "Much Ado About Nothing" (1952). He was studying with Uta Hagen who recommended him for a role in the Broadway production of "A Month in the Country" (1956), directed by Michael Redgrave. It ran for 48 performances on Broadway. The Theatre World declared Hedison as one of