Don Quine | |
|---|---|
 Don Quine in Southern California | |
| Born | Donald Robert Charles Quine September 11, 1938 Fennville, Michigan, U.S. |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1959–1993 |
| Known for | |
| Spouses | Carole Kane
(m. 1959; div. 1966)Sharon Ann Quine (m. 2014) |
| Children | 3 |
| Website | Don Quine website |
Donald Robert Charles Quine (born September 11, 1938) is an American author, actor, and sports promoter. He is known for his television roles playing Joe Chernak and Stacey Grainger in Peyton Place and The Virginian. Quine also was the president of the Professional Karate Association (PKA) whose Kick of the 80’s weekly fight series on ESPN ran for close to a decade. He wrote American Karate, a book on self-defense.
Quine was born on September 11, 1938, in Fennville, Michigan, to Irene Elizabeth Quine (1916-2008) and Robert Corkill Quine (1895-1943).
After his father, a medical surgeon and major in the U.S. Air Force, was killed in the crash of a B-24 Liberator bomber near Gunnison, Colorado, on July 19, 1943, his mother entrusted Quine and his younger sister, Janis, into the care of Alec Dahlke, a carpenter, and his wife Evelyn, a schoolteacher, in Oxnard, California.[citation needed] Their daughters, Phyllis and Patty babysat the two siblings, giving Don's mother the opportunity to continue working as a dental assistant while staying at the home of a friend to save up money for a place to live with her two children.[citation needed]
Several years later, Quine's mother remarried, and he and his sister moved to northern California with their stepfather, James Gores, who was a steeplejack.[citation needed][1] Quine was valedictorian of his sixth grade class at Santa Fe Elementary in Oakland, California, a sergeant in the school Traffic Patrol and had two paper routes as a delivery boy for The Oakland Tribune.[citation needed] He bought the first TV set in his neighborhood, a 10" RCA, and charged kids a nickel a peek to watch Howdy Doody and Lone Ranger, until his stepfather put an end to the operation and explained to Don that capitalism has its limits.[citation needed]
His teenage years were troubled and Don spent several months at a juvenile detention center in Martinez, California, for burglary. After his mother divorced Gores and married an officer in the Coast Guard, Nathan Vanger, Don moved to Staten Island and graduated from New Dorp High School in 1957.[citation needed]
After a semester of pre-medical studies at the University of Colorado, Don realized he did not want to be a doctor. While at Wagner College back in Staten Island, Don became involved in the Theatre Arts program. This led him to New York City where he studied at the American Theatre Wing with Stella Adler and John Stix, before landing the role of Tom Stark in Robert Penn Warren’s Off-Broadway premiere of All the King’s Men at the East 74th Street Theater in 1959. It was here that he was spotted by an agent and offered work in Hollywood.
