George earned the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal and the National Defense Service Medal. These awards are documented in his official military personnel file available at the National Archives and Records Administration. After completing his enlistment, George attended the University of Miami from 1953–1958, where he earned a Bachelor's in Business Administration degree from the school of business. He was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, along with his brother Nick, who also attended the University of Miami. George held down a variety of jobs before he began acting for a living, including working as a private investigator and as a bartender in a Miami bar. He owned and operated eateries and beer bars, one called the Dragnet Drive-In in Miami and another in Stockton, California. The inn in Stockton where he worked for five months during a break from college had been owned by his late uncle for seven years and was off-limits to Marines. He held black belts in karate and judo. He worked as a bouncer in tough restaurants and held a pilot's license. George was hired by a friend who owned a 110-foot converted Canadian gunboat and transported cargo through the Caribbean for two years. Before graduating from the University of Miami, he had a job lined up with a big investment company; however he instead turned to acting after completing a vocational test battery that indicated that he should work in drama. After graduating from college, George began acting in New York City, where he performed on the stage and in television commercials. His big break came when he was working as a bouncer at a New York waterfront bar and producer Robert Rafelson convinced him to begin an acting career. He studied acting under Wynn Handman and landed roles in Off-Broadway productions of popular plays of the day. Small theater productions in which he appeared while he was studying drama included "All My Sons", "The Moon Is Blue", "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "Stalag 17" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Under drama coach Wynn Handman, he landed a sixteen-week engagement in the play "Mr. Roberts" with actor Hugh O'Brian; parts in Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams works followed. His career took off after he made a 60-second TV commercial for shaving cream, where he played the young man in the "Good morning, Mr. Gray" shaving spot, and won the New York Film Festival Award for best actor in a commercial. During this 1962 shaving-cream commercial, George played a groom lathering up before his first honeymoon night, with a line where he said, "It's all for you."