Richard Basehart

Acting · 1.7 popularity

Age

111

Movies

Born: August 31, 1914 – September 17, 1984
From: Zanesville, Ohio, USA

Biography

John Richard Basehart (August 31, 1914 – September 17, 1984) was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson. One of his most notable film roles was the acrobat known as "the Fool" in the acclaimed Italian film La strada directed by Federico Fellini. He also appeared as the killer in the film noir classic He Walked by Night (1948), as a psychotic member of the Hatfield clan in Roseanna McCoy (1949), as Ishmael in Moby Dick (1956), and in the drama Decision Before Dawn (1951). He was married to Italian Academy Award-nominated actress Valentina Cortese, with whom he had one son before their divorce in 1960. Cortese and Basehart also costarred in Robert Wise's The House on Telegraph Hill (1951). Basehart was also noted for his deep, distinctive voice and was prolific as a narrator of many television and movie projects ranging from features to documentaries. In 1980, Basehart narrated the mini-series 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. He 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. In 1971, Basehart played "Captain Sligo", a comical Irishman with a pet buffalo who negotiates a flawed but legal cattle purchase and unconventionally courts a widow with two children, played by Salome Jens, in CBS's western series, Gunsmoke, with James Arness. Basehart appeared in an episode of The Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-O, and as Hannibal Applewood, an abusive schoolteacher in Little House on the Prairie in 1976. In 1972, he appeared in the Columbo episode Dagger of the Mind in which he and Honor Blackman played a husband-and-wife theatrical team who were loose parodies of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. In the feature realm, he played a supporting role as a doctor in Rage (1972), a theatrical feature starring and directed by George C. Scott. He made a few TV movies including Sole Survivor (1970) and The Birdmen (1971). Both were based on true stories during World War II. He died at age 70 following a series of strokes. One month before his death, Basehart was an announcer for the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Works

78 films

Moby Dick

19567.1

Chato's Land

19726.5

Love Is a Funny Thing

19696.3

Being There

19797.6

Titanic

19536.6

La Strada

19547.9

The Brothers Karamazov

19586.5

The Island of Dr. Moreau

19775.7

Repeat Performance

19476.1

Fourteen Hours

19517.3

He Walked by Night

19496.7

The Satan Bug

19656.1

Assignment: Munich

19728.0

Valley Forge

19757.0

The Savage Guns

19615.0

Time Limit

19577.2

Kings of the Sun

19636.1

Flood!

19775.1

The Swindle

19557.3

Reign of Terror

19496.8

...and millions will die!

19735.2

Mansion of the Doomed

19766.3

Decision Before Dawn

19516.8

The Golden Vein

19556.7

Cry Wolf

19476.1

Knight Rider: Knight of the Phoenix

19825.5

Time Travelers

19766.3

21 Hours at Munich

19766.3

The House on Telegraph Hill

19516.4

Portrait in Black

19605.7

Fixed Bayonets!

19516.5

Five Branded Women

19606.1

City Beneath the Sea

19714.5

Love and Troubles

19586.3

The Intimate Stranger

19566.2

Maneater

19737.0

Bix: Ain't None of Them Play Like Him Yet

19829.0

Playhouse 90: The Hiding Place

1960

The Andersonville Trial

19706.3

The Stranger's Hand

19546.8

Sole Survivor

19706.3

Let My People Go: The Story of Israel

1965

Marilyn: The Untold Story

19806.9

Tension

19496.8

So Soon to Die

19577.0

The Good Die Young

19546.3

Outside the Wall

19506.1

Stonestreet: Who Killed the Centerfold Model?

19779.0

The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller

20025.8

The Birdmen

19737.7

Rage

19726.7

The Extra Day

19567.1

Roseanna McCoy

19496.1

Hitler

19625.8

They've Killed President Lincoln!

1971

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

19787.0

Judgment: The Court Martial of Lt. William Calley

19755.3

The Bounty Man

19726.3

Visa to Canton

19605.0

Jacqueline Susann and the Valley of the Dolls

19678.0

Jons und Erdme

19599.0

The Great Bank Hoax

19785.0

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

19689.0

The Ambitious One

19597.8

Hans Brinker

19696.9

Miracles of Thursday

19576.8

For the Love of Mike

19606.0

Canyon Crossroads

19556.3

Four Days In November

19646.4

Egypt: Quest for Eternity

19826.8

The First Woman President

1974

Jailbirds

19545.5

The Death of Me Yet

19717.5

Cartouche

19555.8

Planet Mars

1979

Land of Celtic Ghosts

1979

The Yanks Are Coming

196310.0

Trial at Nuremberg

19647.0