Richard Basehart
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.
Known for
Columbo
Nicholas Framer
The Love Boat
Stan Ellis
Knight Rider
Wilton Knight
Little House on the Prairie
The Twilight Zone
Adam Cook
Ironside
Noel Seymour
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Philip Townsend
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Miles Crawford
Hawaii Five-O
Murdock
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
David Manning
Rawhide
Tod Stone
Combat!
Capt. Steiner
Vega$
Gunsmoke
Captain Aron Sligo
Naked City
Lester Bergson
The Swindle
Carlo
Route 66
Tales of the Unexpected
Slade
Studio One
Matt Donovan
Marcus Welby, M.D.
Professor Andrew Kirkcastle
Marcus Welby, M.D.
Reece Sutton
Ben Casey
Titanic
George S. Headley
Cry Wolf
James Caldwell Demarest
La Strada
Il 'Matto'
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Adm. Harriman Nelson
Roseanna McCoy
Mounts Hatfield
The Streets of San Francisco
Bishop Tim Farrow
Fixed Bayonets!
Cpl. Denno
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Sayer of the Law
Canyon Crossroads
Larry Kendall
Kings of the Sun
Ah Min
Tension
Warren Quimby
How the West Was Won
Colonel Flint
Five Branded Women
Eric Reinhardt
Time Travelers
Dr. Joshua Henderson (1871)
Time Limit
Maj. Harry Cargill
Flood!
John Cutler
The Good Die Young
Joe Halsey
Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Visa to Canton
Don Benton
Repeat Performance
William Williams
Outside the Wall
Larry Nelson
21 Hours at Munich
Willy Brandt
Sole Survivor
Brig. Gen. Russell Hamner
The Rebels
Duke of Kentland
Chato's Land
Nye Buell
Arrest and Trial
Moby Dick
Ishmael
The House on Telegraph Hill
Alan Spender
Dan August
Prof. Theodore Rye
Love Is a Funny Thing
Acteur
Judgment: The Court Martial of Lt. William Calley
George Latimer
Mansion of the Doomed
Dr. Leonard Chaney
The Satan Bug
Dr. Gregor Hoffman
Portrait in Black
Howard Mason
The Savage Guns
Steve Fallon
Maneater
Carl Brenner
Decision Before Dawn
Lt. Dick Rennick
He Walked by Night
Roy Martin / Roy Morgan
The First Woman President
Woodrow Wilson
The Andersonville Trial
Henry Wirz
The Birdmen
Schiller
The Brothers Karamazov
Ivan Karamazov
Cartouche
Il conte Jacques de Maudy
Los Angeles Plays Itself
Roy Morgan/Roy Martin in He Walked By Night (archive footage)
The Extra Day
Joe Blake
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
Cpl. Denno (archive footage) (uncredited)
Jailbirds
Doctor Stefano Luprandi
The Intimate Stranger
Reginald 'Reggie' Wilson
City Beneath the Sea
The President
Four Days In November
Narrator (voice)
Miracles of Thursday
Martino
Valley Forge
Jons und Erdme
Wittkuhn
The Bounty Man
Angus Keough
Stonestreet: Who Killed the Centerfold Model?
Elliott Osborn
Masada
Modern-Day Narrator (voice, uncredited)
Knight Rider: Knight of the Phoenix
Wilton Knight
The Great Bank Hoax
Manny Benchly
The Stranger's Hand
Joe Hamstringer
...And Millions Die!
Dr Douglas Pruitt
Mr. Merlin
Love and Troubles
Paolo Martelli
Being There
Vladimir Skrapinov
Assignment: Munich
Maj. Barney Caldwell
Joe Forrester
National Geographic Specials
Narrator (voice)
So Soon to Die
Lionel Amblin
For the Love of Mike
Father Phelan
The Golden Vein
Ing. Stefano Manfredi
Planet Mars
Narrator
Medical Story
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Conway
Hallmark Hall of Fame
General Washington
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
King Arthur
Fourteen Hours
Robert Cosick
Jacqueline Susann and the Valley of the Dolls
The Critical List
Matt Kinsella
W.E.B.
Reign of Terror
Maximilian Robespierre
They've Killed President Lincoln!
Host / Narrator
Rage
Dr. Roy Caldwell
Hans Brinker
Dr. Boeker
Marilyn: The Untold Story
Johnny Hyde
Bix: Ain't None of Them Play Like Him Yet
Self
Trial at Nuremberg
Narrator
The Yanks Are Coming
Narrator (voice)
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Narrator
The Death of Me Yet
Robert Barnes
The Ambitious One
George Rancourt
Let My People Go: The Story of Israel
Narrator (voice)
The Hiding Place
Martin Lambert
Land of Celtic Ghosts
Himself
Egypt: Quest for Eternity
Narrator (Self)