George Seaton

On February 19, 1936, he married Phyllis Loughton. She worked as a dialogue director in Hollywood. Phyllis served as first female mayor of Beverly Hills.

Their son Marc Seaton born on October 14, 1945, in Los Angeles, California. He became an actor.

Seaton succumbed to cancer on July 28, 1979, in Beverly Hills, California.

He was born George Stenius on April 17, 1911, in South Bend, Indiana, to Swedish parents who emigrated from Stockholm.

He was baptised as Roman Catholic. He spent his childhood in Jewish neighbourhood of Detroit and considered himself a ‘Shabas goy’. He attended an Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva and studied Hebrew and was also mitzvahed.

Making up his mind to pursue a career in acting he completed his graduation and instead of continuing his studies at Yale University he joined stock theatre company of noted American theatre director, actress, and drama company manager, Jessie Bonstelle for a weekly remuneration of $15.

During this time he changed his name to George Seaton as he felt ‘Seaton’ would be a much easier word to pronounce.

While acting on-stage he also contributed his voice for the title role of a program called ‘The Lone Ranger’ that was aired in ‘WXYZ’, a commercial radio station licensed to Detroit, Michigan. He first supplied his voice in the test broadcasts of the program in January 1933 and then contributed in the program’s regular schedules.

According to him, as he was unable to whistle for his horse as per requirement of the script of ‘The Lone Ranger’, he devised the cry ‘Hi-yo, Silver’.

He submitted one of the plays he wrote in the office of ‘Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’ Studios Inc (‘MGM’), the famous American media company in 1933. Upon reading the play renowned American film producer Irving Grant Thalberg, who was often referred as ‘The Boy Wonder’ and who had an extraordinary quality of choosing the right scripts, was quite impressed by the potential of young Seaton.