Mark Slade

Mark Van Blarcom Slade, born May 1, 1939, in Salem, Massachusetts, is an American actor, artist, and author. He is the son of Elinor Van Blarcom Slade and William A. Slade Jr., a Boston businessman and watercolor artist, and grew up with two sisters and a brother in the Danvers and Hamilton area of Massachusetts's North Shore. His parents divorced when he was thirteen, after which his stepfather, Esmond R. Crowley Jr., became a significant influence in his life.

Slade enrolled at Worcester Academy in 1956 with the intention of pursuing a career as an artist. After substituting for an ill classmate in a production of The Male Animal, playing the role of an English professor, he redirected his ambitions toward acting. He subsequently moved to New York City to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, working at the 21 Club to support himself during his studies. In the early 1960s, he also served in the United States Army Reserve.

His Broadway career began in 1960 with an appearance in the play There Was a Little Girl, directed by Joshua Logan; the production also marked Jane Fonda's debut on Broadway. Slade then secured a role in the 1961 film Splendor in the Grass, directed by Elia Kazan and shot in upstate New York. That same year, after relocating to the West Coast, he was cast as Seaman Jimmy "Red" Smith in the feature film Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, directed by Irwin Allen. Although his character was killed in the film, Allen cast him again for the subsequent ABC television series, this time as a new character, Seaman Malone, in 1964. This made Slade the only one of six actors to appear in both the film and television versions of the property. He appeared in the first half of the series' debut season before departing to take a semi-regular role as Eddie in the CBS sitcom Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., starring Jim Nabors, appearing in eight episodes during the first half of that show's first season.

His first television role had come in 1961, when he played Stu Walters in the episode "Deadline" of the ABC sitcom My Three Sons, starring Fred MacMurray. He was cast in three episodes of the NBC drama Mr. Novak, starring James Franciscus, and in 1963 appeared in the episode "A Girl Named Amy" on the ABC rodeo series Stoney Burke, starring Jack Lord. In 1964, he guest-starred in the Rawhide episode "The Enormous Fist," opposite Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood, and also portrayed the title character Michael Manning, alias Michael Da Vinci, in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Careless Kidnapper." During the 1965–1966 television season, he played Radioman Patrick Hollis in the NBC sitcom The Wackiest Ship in the Army.

In 1966, at age twenty-seven, Slade was cast as Billy Blue Cannon on the NBC Western series The High Chaparral, a role for which he became particularly well known. The character was the blond-haired, blue-eyed son of ranch patriarch John Cannon, played by Leif Erickson, in a story set in the Arizona Territory. The series ran for four seasons. That same year he also appeared in an episode of Bonanza as Jud Rikeman. Slade's work across stage, screen, and television ultimately totaled more than 300 appearances. He received several international honors for his acting, including the Belgian Viewers Award, the Bambi, the Bravo Golden Otto, and the Western Heritage Award. He later played Taylor Reed in the 1973 film Salty and reprised the role in the syndicated adventure series Salty, which ran from 1974 to 1975. His acting career continued into the early 1990s.

Parallel to his acting work, Slade pursued careers as a visual artist and writer. His illustrations, political cartoons, caricatures, and comic strips appeared in newspapers, magazines, and other publications internationally. A collaboration with producer and writer Danny Arnold, known for the television series Barney Miller, produced the long-running comic strip Howard and Friends. Later works in oils, graphite, and hand-pulled prints entered private collections. As a writer, he gained critical recognition for writing and performing the guest role in the "Cliffy" episode of the television series The Rookies. His first published novel, Going Down Maine, appeared in 2012. A collection of prose and verse titled Of Pain and Coffee, illustrated by Slade himself, was published in late 2014, followed by a companion volume, Someone's Story, in December of that year, which incorporated the author's own photography. His second novel, Hangin' with the Truth, a historically oriented story centered on the outlaw Bob Slye, was released in 2016, and a continuation of that narrative, Don't Call Me Slye, was published in November 2024.

Slade married Melinda Riccilli in 1968, and the couple has two sons, Morgan and Mitchel. Together they founded Slade Square Productions and were affiliated with the Slade Media Group, a firm founded by Melinda Riccilli Slade that specialized in corporate image campaigns, crisis management, graphic design, and marketing communications. Slade has resided in Northern California, where he has continued his artistic work. His maternal grandmother, Alice Louise Van Blarcom, was a fifth cousin of Henry Ford, and his Ford lineage traces back to Martha and John Ford, who were passengers aboard the Fortune, the second English ship to reach Plymouth Colony, which arrived on November 9, 1621.