Actor. He is best remembered for his role as 'Ellery Queen' in the NBC television series of the same name that aired during the 1975-1976 season. Born Dana James Hutton in Binghamton, New York, he was discovered by American film director Douglas Sirk while performing in live theater in Germany while serving in the US Army. One of his earliest screen appearances was in 1959, in an episode of "The Twilight Zone." A gifted comedic actor, his early film appearances include "Where the Boys Are" (1960, with George Hamilton, Paula Prentiss, Yvette Mimieux, and Connie Francis), "The Honeymoon Machine" (1961, with Steve McQueen and Paula Prentiss), "Bachelor in Paradise" (1961, with Bob Hope and Lana Turner), and "The Horizontal Lieutenant" (1962, with Paula Prentiss). In 1966 he gained a wider audience in "Walk, Don't Run" (with Samantha Eggar and Cary Grant, his last feature-film appearance). Due to his tall, gangly frame and the absent-minded quality of his delivery, he was viewed as a successor to James Stewart. He also appeared in dramatic film roles, with Sam Peckinpah's 1965 western "Major Dundee" (with Charlton Heston and Richard Harris) and the 1968 Vietnam war drama "The Green Berets" (with John Wayne and Davis Janssen) and "Hellfighters" (with John Wayne and Katharine Ross). He also starred in the Western comedy "The Hallelujah Train" (1965, with Burt Lancaster and Lee Remick), and "Who's Minding the Mint?" (1967, with Walter Brennan and Milton Berle). In the early 1970s, he began working almost exclusively in television and played fictional amateur detective 'Ellery Queen' in the 1975 made-for-television movie and 1975-1976 television series "Ellery Queen," set in 1946-1947 New York City, New York, with co-star David Wayne, who portrayed his widowed father, a New York Police Department homicide detective. His character played a writer of murder mysteries, who would assist his father as an amateur in solving an "actual" murder case. Near the end of each episode before revealing the solution, he would "break the 4th wall" by giving the audience a brief review of the clues and asking if they had solved the mystery. He died of liver cancer in Los Angeles, California at the age of 45. He is the father of actor Timothy Hutton.