Richard Basehart
Acting
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.
Los Angeles Plays Itself
Roy Morgan/Roy Martin in He Walked By Night (archive footage)
The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
Cpl. Denno (archive footage) (uncredited)
Bix: Ain't None of Them Play Like Him Yet
Self
Knight Rider: Knight of the Phoenix
Wilton Knight
Egypt: Quest for Eternity
Narrator (Self)
Marilyn: The Untold Story
Johnny Hyde
Being There
Vladimir Skrapinov
Land of Celtic Ghosts
Himself
Planet Mars
Narrator
The Great Bank Hoax
Manny Benchly
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
King Arthur
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Sayer of the Law
Flood!
John Cutler
Stonestreet: Who Killed the Centerfold Model?
Elliott Osborn
21 Hours at Munich
Willy Brandt
Mansion of the Doomed
Dr. Leonard Chaney
Time Travelers
Dr. Joshua Henderson (1871)
Valley Forge
Judgment: The Court Martial of Lt. William Calley
George Latimer
The First Woman President
Woodrow Wilson
Maneater
Carl Brenner
The Birdmen
Schiller
...And Millions Die!
Dr Douglas Pruitt
Rage
Dr. Roy Caldwell
The Bounty Man
Angus Keough
Chato's Land
Nye Buell
Assignment: Munich
Maj. Barney Caldwell
The Death of Me Yet
Robert Barnes
City Beneath the Sea
The President
They've Killed President Lincoln!
Host / Narrator
The Andersonville Trial
Henry Wirz
Sole Survivor
Brig. Gen. Russell Hamner
Hans Brinker
Dr. Boeker
Love Is a Funny Thing
Acteur
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Narrator
Jacqueline Susann and the Valley of the Dolls
The Satan Bug
Dr. Gregor Hoffman
Let My People Go: The Story of Israel
Narrator (voice)
Trial at Nuremberg
Narrator
Four Days In November
Narrator (voice)
Kings of the Sun
Ah Min
The Yanks Are Coming
Narrator (voice)
Hitler
Adolf Hitler
The Savage Guns
Steve Fallon
Visa to Canton
Don Benton
For the Love of Mike
Father Phelan
Portrait in Black
Howard Mason
The Hiding Place
Martin Lambert
Five Branded Women
Eric Reinhardt
The Ambitious One
George Rancourt
Jons und Erdme
Wittkuhn
Love and Troubles
Paolo Martelli
The Brothers Karamazov
Ivan Karamazov
Time Limit
Maj. Harry Cargill
Miracles of Thursday
Martino
So Soon to Die
Lionel Amblin
Moby Dick
Ishmael
The Intimate Stranger
Reginald 'Reggie' Wilson
The Extra Day
Joe Blake
The Swindle
Carlo
The Golden Vein
Ing. Stefano Manfredi
Cartouche
Il conte Jacques de Maudy
Canyon Crossroads
Larry Kendall
La Strada
Il 'Matto'
Jailbirds
Doctor Stefano Luprandi
The Good Die Young
Joe Halsey
The Stranger's Hand
Joe Hamstringer
Titanic
George S. Headley
Decision Before Dawn
Lt. Dick Rennick
Fixed Bayonets!
Cpl. Denno
The House on Telegraph Hill
Alan Spender
Fourteen Hours
Robert Cosick
Outside the Wall
Larry Nelson
Tension
Warren Quimby
Reign of Terror
Maximilian Robespierre
Roseanna McCoy
Mounts Hatfield
He Walked by Night
Roy Martin / Roy Morgan
Cry Wolf
James Caldwell Demarest
Repeat Performance
William Williams