Nick Adams was born Nicholas Aloysius Adamshock on July 10, 1931 in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania. Not alot is known about Nick in his early years. His family moved to New Jersey when Adams was 5 years of age. When he was a teenager to make money, he hustled pool games and did work as a bat boy. A playing position in minor league baseball was extended to him but Adams refused because of the low wages. He had a brief encounter with actor Henry Fonda when
trying to get a role in a play in New York, who had suggested to get training as an actor.
He made his way out west to Los Angeles and worked at numerous jobs. In 1952 he joined the United States Coast Guard to prevent the Army from drafting him into the Korean War. After serving with the Coast Guard, Adams did a few movie roles which were “Somebody Loves Me”, “Strange Lady in Town” and “Mister Roberts” with James Cagney and Henry Fonda. His breakthrough into films was a supporting role in “Rebel Without a Cause” which launched in 1955. Adams became a close and personal friend with James Dean while filming “Rebel Without A Cause” and was extremely hurt when he heard of Dean’s passing. He met Natalie Wood while doing his role and dated her for awhile. Many movies followed including “Picnic”, “Our Miss Brooks”, “Fury at Showdown”, “Teacher’s Pet”, “No Time for Sergeants”, “Pillow Talk” with Rock Hudson and “The FBI Story” with James Stewart. He did a multitude of television appearances as well including “Wanted: Dead or Alive” with Steve McQueen, “Tales of Wells Fargo” and “Trackdown. Nick Adams is best remembered to fans as playing “Johnny Yuma” in the 1959 short lived television series, “The Rebel” which aired on ABC. He played a former Confederate Army Private who roams the Wild West. On May 11, 1959, he married former child actor, Carol Nugent. They had two children together.
In 1963, Adams was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in “Twilight of Honor”. He pushed hard for the award by spending a large amount of money in ads which appeared in trade magazines, but to his dismay he lost to Melvyn Douglas. By 1964, Adams had a difficult time being able to get acting parts and because of this, he reluctantly accepted roles in low budget Japanese movies such as “Kaiju Daisenso” and “Kokusai Himitsu Keisatsu: Zettai Zetsumi” which was in 1967. His last appearance was in a film called “Los Asesinos” in 1968. During the night of February 7, 1968, Adams’s lawyer and a friend drove to his house because he had failed to show up for a dinner appointment. The friend broke through a window and found Adams upstairs in his bedroom, dead. He was only 36 years old. His autopsy showed a drug overdose by accidental suicide. Nick Adams is currently buried in Berwick, Pennsylvania.
