Richard Basehart

Basehart was born in Zanesville, Ohio, one of five children born to Mae (née Wetherald) and Harry T. Basehart, a former actor turned editor of The Zanesville Times-Signal. He worked as a reporter at his father's newspaper and as a radio announcer in Zanesville and Columbus, Ohio, before entering a stage career at the Hedgerow Theatre in Pennsylvania.https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/19/obituaries/richard-basehart-stage-and-screen-star-dies.html

Basehart made his Broadway debut in 1938. He won the 1945 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Young Actor for his starring role in John Patrick's play The Hasty Heart, which was adapted into a 1949 film of the same name. He made his film debut with Repeat Performance (1947). So confident was Eagle-Lion Films in his performance that the film was first screened in his hometown.https://www.tcm.com/video/1558166/noir-alley-eddie-muller-on-repeat-performance-1947

He soon appeared as the killer in the film noir classic He Walked by Night (1948) for Eagle-Lion, then he appeared as a psychotic member of the Hatfield clan in Roseanna McCoy (1949), as Maximilien Robespierre in the period film noir Reign of Terror (1949), as a timid husband in Tension (1950), as Ishmael in Moby Dick (1956), in the drama Decision Before Dawn (1951), George S. Healey in Titanic (1953) and as Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov (1958).

One of his most notable film roles was the acrobat and clown known as "the Fool" in the acclaimed Italian film La Strada (1954), directed by Federico Fellini.{{cite news |last=Weiler |first=A.h. |author-link=A. H. Weiler |date=July 17, 1956 |title=Screen: A Truthful Italian Journey; 'La Strada' Is Tender, Realistic Parable |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1956/07/17/archives/screen-a-truthful-italian-journey-la-strada-is-tender-realistic.html |access-date=July 22, 2019 |work=The New York Times}} He portrayed the title character in Hitler (1962), and a high priest in Kings of the Sun (1963).

Basehart played a supporting role as a doctor in the feature film Rage (1972), a theatrical feature starring and directed by George C. Scott. Also in the 1970s, he co-starred in Chato's Land (1972) and The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977). In 1979, he appeared as a Russian diplomat with Peter Sellers in Being There.{{cite news |last=Krebs |first=Albin |date=September 19, 1984 |title=Richard Basehart, Stage And Screen Star, Dies |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/19/obituaries/richard-basehart-stage-and-screen-star-dies.html |access-date=June 8, 2017 |newspaper=The New York Times}}

From 1964 to 1968, Basehart played the lead role, Admiral Harriman Nelson, on Irwin Allen's first foray into science-fiction television, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Basehart appeared in the pilot episode of the television series Knight Rider as billionaire Wilton Knight. He is the narrator at the beginning of the show's credits.{{cite web |last=Nuthall |first=Paul |date=August 31, 2014 |title=Remembering Richard Basehart |url=http://www.knightriderarchives.com/news/2014/08/31/remembering-richard-basehart/ |access-date=July 22, 2019 |publisher=Knight Rider Archives}} He accepted the lead role in the 1962 film Hitler. He appeared in "Probe 7, Over and Out", an episode of The Twilight Zone,{{cite web |last=Rubin |first=Steve |date=November 29, 2017 |title=November 29 in Twilight Zone History: Celebrating the 1963 premiere of 'Probe 7, Over and Out' |url=https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/november-29-in-twilight-zone-history-celebrating-the-1963-premiere-of-probe-7-over-and-out |access-date=July 22, 2019 |publisher=Syfy Wire}} Hawaii Five-O, and as Hannibal Applewood, an abusive schoolteacher in Little House on the Prairie in 1976. In 1972, Basehart appeared in the Columbo episode "Dagger of the Mind", in which Honor Blackman and he played a husband-and-wife theatrical team who accidentally kill Sir Roger Haversham, the producer of their rendition of Macbeth.{{cite book |last1=Sabin |first1=Roger |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CoT2BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA59 |title=Cop Shows: A Critical History of Police Dramas on Television |last2=Wilson |first2=Ronald |last3=Speidel |first3=Linda |last4=Faucette |first4=Brian |last5=Bethell |first5=Ben |date=2015 |publisher=McFarland & Company |isbn=978-0-7864-4819-7 |location=Jefferson, North Carolina |page=59}}

Basehart made a few TV movies, including Sole Survivor (1970) and The Birdmen (1971). Both were based on true stories during World War II.

Basehart narrated a wide range of television and movie projects. In 1964, he narrated the David Wolper documentary about the Kennedy assassination, Four Days in November.{{cite news |date=October 8, 1964 |title='Four Days in November,' Documentary on Assassination |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/10/08/archives/four-days-in-november-documentary-on-assassination.html |access-date=July 22, 2019 |work=The New York Times}} In 1980, Basehart narrated the miniseries written by Peter Arnett called Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War that covered Vietnam and its battles from the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, to the final American embassy evacuation on April 30, 1975.{{cite news |date=August 16, 1987 |title=Television and Vietnam |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/16/arts/l-television-and-vietnam-580087.html |access-date=July 22, 2019 |work=The New York Times}}

One month before his death, Basehart narrated a poem during the extinguishing of the flame at the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics.{{cite news |last=Litsky |first=Frank |author-link=Frank Litsky |date=August 13, 1984 |title=A STRIKING CLOSING CEREMONY |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/13/sports/a-striking-closing-ceremony.html |access-date=July 22, 2019 |work=The New York Times}}{{cite news |date=September 19, 1984 |title=Actor Richard Basehart dead at 70 |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1984/09/19/Actor-Richard-Basehart-dead-at-70/2024464414400/ |access-date=July 22, 2019 |work=United Press International}}

File:Richard_Basehart_grave_at_Westwood_Village_Memorial_Park_Cemetery_in_Brentwood,_California.JPG

Basehart was married three times. After the death of his first wife Stephanie Klein, he married Italian actress Valentina Cortese in 1951, with whom he had one son, actor Jackie Basehart; the couple divorced in 1960.{{cite news |last=Wiseman |first=Andreas |date=July 10, 2019 |title=Valentina Cortese Dies: Italian Actress, Oscar-Nominated For François Truffaut’s ‘Day For Night’, Was 96 |url=https://deadline.com/2019/07/valentina-cortese-dies-italian-actress-oscar-nominated-for-francois-truffauts-day-for-night-was-96-1202644138/ |access-date=July 22, 2019 |work=Deadline Hollywood}}{{cite news |last1=Bergan |first1=Ronald |last2=Lane |first2=John Francis |date=July 10, 2019 |title=Valentina Cortese obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jul/10/valentina-cortese-obituary |access-date=July 22, 2019 |work=The Guardian}}

In 1962, he married his third wife, Diana Lotery, with whom he had two children. He and Diana remained married until his death in 1984.{{cite news |last=Vils |first=Ursula |date=September 22, 1986 |title=Artist Diana Basehart Back at Work on Her Pet Projects |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-09-22-vw-8558-story.html |access-date=July 22, 2019 |work=Los Angeles Times}}

Basehart died in Los Angeles on September 17, 1984, following a series of strokes. He was 70 years old. His body was cremated, and the ashes interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. He died eight days before Walter Pidgeon, his film counterpart in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

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Category:1914 births

Category:1984 deaths

Category:People from Zanesville, Ohio

Category:Male actors from Ohio

Category:American male film actors

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Category:20th-century American male actors