Emmett Evan "Van" Heflin Jr. (December 13, 1908 – July 23, 1971) was an American theatre, radio, and film actor. He played mostly character parts over the course of his film career, but during the 1940s had a string of roles as a leading man. Heflin won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Johnny Eager (1942). He also had starring roles in the westerns Shane (1953), 3:10 to Yuma (1957), and Gunman's Walk (1958). He portrayed a mentally disturbed airline passenger in the classic disaster film Airport (1970).
Heflin was born in Walters, Oklahoma, the son of Fanny Bleecker (née Shippey) and Dr. Emmett Evan Heflin, a dentist. He was of Irish and French ancestry. Heflin's sister was Daytime Emmy-nominated actress Frances Heflin (who married composer Sol Kaplan). Heflin attended Classen High School in Oklahoma City. One source says Long Beach Polytechnic High School. He also went to the University of Oklahoma, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1932, and was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He earned a master's degree in theater at Yale University.
Prior to his acting career, Heflin was an accomplished seaman.
Heflin began his acting career on Broadway in the late 1920s. He appeared in Mr. Moneypenny (1928), The Bride of Torozko (1934), The Night Remembers (1934), Mid-West (1936), and End of Summer (1936). After this, Katharine Hepburn helped him secure a film contract with RKO Radio Pictures and he did a screen test in New York.
Heflin made his film debut in A Woman Rebels (1936), opposite Katharine Hepburn, whom he played opposite in the stage version of The Philadelphia Story. He followed it with The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1937), billed third after Preston Foster and Jean Muir, and Flight from Glory (1937), a Chester Morris programmer where Heflin played an alcoholic pilot.
Heflin was in Annapolis Salute (1937), then was given his first lead role in Saturday's Heroes (1937), playing a star quarterback.
Heflin returned to Broadway for Western Waters (1937–38) and Casey Jones (1938), the latter for the Group Theatre and directed by Elia Kazan.
In Hollywood Heflin had a support role in Back Door to Heaven (1939). He returned to Broadway where he played Macaulay Connor opposite Katharine Hepburn, Joseph Cotten and Shirley Booth in The Philadelphia Story, which ran for 417 performances from 1939 to 1940. It led to Heflin being offered a choice character part in the Errol Flynn western Santa Fe Trail (1940) at Warners, playing a villainous gun seller. The movie was a big hit.
Not being "swamped with offers" after Santa Fe Trail, Heflin contacted Billy Grady, an MGM talent scout, and arranged for a screen test, which Heflin did opposite Donna Reed. He received a stock deal from MGM, which initially cast Heflin in supporting roles in films such as The Feminine Touch (1941) and H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941).
He had a part as Robert Taylor's doomed best friend in Johnny Eager, released early in 1942. It was a box office success and in March of 1943 won Heflin the 1942 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Following his strong performance in Johnny Eager, MGM began to groom Heflin as a leading man in B movies, giving him the star role in Kid Glove Killer (1942), directed by Fred Zinnemann, and Grand Central Murder (1942). Both were popular.
Encouraged, MGM cast Heflin as Kathryn Grayson's love interest in a musical, Seven Sweethearts (1942), then was given the star role in an "A" film, as the embattled President Andrew Johnson in Tennessee Johnson (1942) opposite Lionel Barrymore. The film was a box office flop.
Heflin was Judy Garland's love interest in Presenting Lily Mars (1943); then, he enlisted in the Army.
Heflin served initially in the field artillery. After recuperating from injuries incurred during training, he was transferred to the Ninth Air Force as combat photographer, flying over France and Germany, before joining, with many other actors, the First Motion Picture Unit.
He first appeared in the training film Land and Live in the Jungle (1944) and then in three more films.
When Heflin returned to Hollywood, MGM lent him to Hal Wallis to star opposite Barbara Stanwyck in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946). He was in the all-star musical Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) then was loaned to Warner Bros to co star with Joan Crawford in Possessed (1947).
Back at MGM he co-starred with Lana Turner in Green Dolphin Street (1947), a big prestige film for the studio and their biggest hit of 1947. He was reunited with Stanwyck in B.F.'s Daughter (1948) and was loaned to Walter Wanger for Tap Roots (1948), where he was top billed; both lost money.
MGM cast him as Athos in The Three Musketeers (1948), a huge success. He was top-billed in Zinnemann's Act of Violence (1949), and supported Jennifer Jones in Madame Bovary (1949). Both movies were acclaimed but lost money. He then made a third film with Stanwyck, East Side, West Side (1950), billed beneath James Mason. The picture only netted a small profit for the studio.