Richard Boone

Richard Allen Boone, born June 18, 1917, in Los Angeles, California, and died January 10, 1981, was an American actor whose career spanned Broadway, television, and film. He appeared in more than 50 films and became nationally recognized for his starring role in the television Western series Have Gun – Will Travel. His father, Kirk E. Boone, was a corporate lawyer and a direct descendant of Squire Boone, the brother of frontiersman Daniel Boone. His mother, Cecile, was Jewish and the daughter of Russian immigrants.

Boone attended Hoover High School in Glendale, California, and later enrolled at Stanford University in Palo Alto, where he joined the Theta Xi fraternity before leaving without a degree. He held a variety of jobs after departing Stanford, working as an oil rigger, bartender, painter, and writer. In his youth he had attended the San Diego Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad, California, where he was first introduced to theatre under Virginia Atkinson. In 1941 he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving on three ships in the Pacific during World War II as an aviation ordnanceman, aircrewman, and tail gunner on Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, and was discharged at the rank of petty officer first class.

Following the war, Boone used the G.I. Bill to study acting at the Actors Studio in New York. His Broadway career ran from 1947 to 1959. He made his Broadway debut in 1947 in Medea, which starred Judith Anderson and John Gielgud and ran for 214 performances. A production of Macbeth followed in 1948. In 1950 he appeared in The Man, directed by Martin Ritt and featuring Dorothy Gish, which ran for 92 performances. He returned to Broadway in 1959, playing Abraham Lincoln in The Rivalry, a production that ran for 81 performances. He also appeared on Broadway in The Manxman.

His transition to Hollywood came through an indirect route. Director Lewis Milestone, while conducting a screen test for an actress with Boone feeding her lines, was struck by Boone's voice and brought him to Hollywood, where he was signed to a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox. His screen debut came in Milestone's Halls of Montezuma in 1951, in which he played a Marine officer. Fox cast him in a succession of military and supporting roles, including Call Me Mister and The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel, both in 1951. Larger parts followed in Red Skies of Montana, Return of the Texan, Kangaroo, and Way of a Gaucho, all in 1952. In 1953 he played Pontius Pilate in The Robe, the first film shot in CinemaScope, appearing in a single scene opposite Richard Burton. He also appeared in the second CinemaScope production, Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, the same year. Elia Kazan directed him in Man on a Tightrope in 1953, and he had roles in Vicki and City of Bad Men that year as well. He eventually broke his Fox contract before its conclusion.

During the filming of Halls of Montezuma, Boone befriended Jack Webb, who was then producing and starring in Dragnet. Webb was developing a medical drama for NBC, and Boone was cast in the lead role of that series, Medic, which ran from 1954 to 1956. His performance earned him an Emmy nomination for Best Actor Starring in a Regular Series in 1955. Concurrent with Medic, he continued appearing in films, including Ten Wanted Men with Randolph Scott, Man Without a Star with Kirk Douglas, and The Tall T with Randolph Scott in 1957, the latter considered among his strongest film performances.

It was Randolph Scott who passed along the script for Have Gun – Will Travel to Boone after turning down the role himself, having received it while the two were working together on Ten Wanted Men. The series, in which Boone played Paladin, a gun-for-hire in the late nineteenth-century American West, ran from 1957 to 1963 and made him a nationally prominent figure. He received additional Emmy nominations for the role in 1959 and 1960. During the series' run he also appeared in the film I Bury the Living in 1958 and starred as Abraham Lincoln on Broadway in The Rivalry in 1959.

Boone subsequently starred in his own television anthology, The Richard Boone Show, which aired from 1963 to 1964 and earned him a fourth Emmy nomination. The series received a Golden Globe for Best Show in 1964. After the show concluded, Boone and his family relocated to Honolulu, Hawaii. He returned to film work with roles in Rio Conchos in 1964, The War Lord with Charlton Heston in 1965, Hombre with Paul Newman in 1967, The Night of the Following Day with Marlon Brando in 1969, The Kremlin Letter directed by John Huston in 1970, and Big Jake with John Wayne in 1971. For his performance in Rio Conchos, he placed third in the Laurel Award for Best Action Performance in 1965. While living in Hawaii, Boone played a role in persuading producer Leonard Freeman to film Hawaii Five-O entirely in the islands rather than using only establishing shots there while conducting principal production in Southern California. Freeman offered Boone the lead role of Steve McGarrett, which Boone declined; the part ultimately went to Jack Lord.