His doctors assured him the amnesia would last only a few days, but he says it took him years to piece together his very colorful, eventful life.
“I had to read my own biography to learn who I was,” he said.
His memoir, Don’t Mind If I Do: My Adventures in Hollywood, was published in 2008.
“I had to think, ‘Do I like this person?'” he says. “I read it through several times and looked at things from my past and I wasn’t sure if I had done them.”
The By Love Possessed actor famously romanced a string of A-list ladies, including Elizabeth Taylor, Vanessa Redgrave and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s elder daughter, Lynda Bird.
He was married once – to Alana Stewart, the mother of the elder of his two sons.
As his memory gradually returned, the most vivid recollections were from his childhood and “memories of manners and kindness.