Long Before Johnny Depp, THIS HEARTTHROB Had a Leading Role in Disney’s ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’

Johnny Depp is famous for his good looks, his benevolence, his versatility in acting, and for embodying quirky, sometimes odd characters.

But the role for which he is best known is that of the morally gray, charismatic, and usually inebriated Captain Jack Sparrow in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean film series. But Depp isn’t the first heartthrob to have a leading role with the Pirates of the Caribbean.

In 2003, actor Johnny Depp‘s name instantly became synonymous with a new film from Walt Disney Pictures. Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl debuted at the box office on July 9 that year, and fans of adventure films and of Johnny Depp were immediately hooked.

Between 2006 and 2017, Depp would star in four more Pirates films as part of a multi-billion franchise that continues to grow in popularity.

But long before Johnny Depp joined the scurvy band of pirates who sail the Caribbean on the big screen, another Hollywood heartthrob joined the swashbucklers at Disney World.

In 1946, after serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, a 21-year-old man named Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., shook the dust of his hometown in Illinois off and headed to Hollywood, intent on becoming an actor.

One year later, he was discovered by a talent scout who immediately gave him a new name–one that forever memorialized the Rock of Gibraltar and the Hudson River. The 22-year-old Hollywood hopeful was none other than Rock Hudson.