Richard Boone

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For the African-American jazz musician, see Richard Bently Boone.
Richard Boone often played in Westerns and action films. He's shown here as Paladin in "Have Gun – Will Travel."
Richard Boone often played in Westerns and action films. He's shown here as Paladin in "Have Gun – Will Travel."

Richard Allen Boone (June 18, 1917  – January 10, 1981) was an American actor who starred in over 50 films and was notable for his roles in Westerns. He was best known as the star of the TV series Have Gun – Will Travel.

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[edit] Biography

Born in Los Angeles, California, Boone was descended from a brother of frontiersman Daniel Boone. He was the middle child of a well-to-do corporate lawyer. Boone left Stanford University prior to graduation and tried his hand at oil-rigging, bartending, painting and writing, before joining the Navy in 1941. He served as an aviation ordnanceman and saw combat on three ships in the South Pacific during World War II.

After the war, he used the G.I. Bill to study acting at the Actor's Studio in New York. Serious and methodical, Boone debuted on Broadway in 1947 in the play Medea, and appeared in Macbeth (1948) and The Man (1950).

In 1950, Boone made his screen debut as a Marine in Halls of Montezuma. He starred in three movies with John Wayne: The Alamo as Sam Houston, Big Jake, and The Shootist.

From 1954 to 1956, Boone became a familiar face when he appeared weekly as the star of Medic, receiving an Emmy nomination for Best Actor Starring in a Regular Series in 1955.

However, it was his second television show, Have Gun - Will Travel, which made him became a national star with his role as Paladin. The show ran from 1957 to 1963, with Boone receiving two more Emmy nominations -in (1959 and 1960).

During the 1960s Boone appeared regularly on other television programs. He was a regular on the What's My Line? Mystery Guests on the Sunday Night CBS-TV quiz show. On that show, he talked with host John Charles Daly about their days working together on the TV show The Front Page.

Boone also had his own television anthology, The Richard Boone Show. Even though it only aired from 1963 to 1964, he received his fourth Emmy nomination in 1964. Along with The Danny Kaye Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Richard Boone Show won a Golden Globe for Best Show in 1964.

After cancellation of his weekly show, Boone and his family moved to Honolulu, Hawaii. While living on Oahu, Boone helped persuade Leonard Freeman to film Hawaii Five-O exclusively in Hawaii. Prior to that, Freeman had planned to do "establishing" location shots in Hawaii, but most production would be done in Southern California. Boone and others convinced Freeman that the islands could offer all necessary support for a major TV series and would provide an authenticity otherwise unobtainable. Freeman, impressed by Boone's love of Hawaii, offered him the role of Steve McGarrett. Boone turned it down, and the role went to Jack Lord, who shared Boone's enthusiasm, which Freeman considered vital.

The six foot two inch (1.88 m) Boone continued to appear in movies, commonly as a villain. These include The Raid (1954), Man Without a Star (1955 King Vidor), The Tall T (1957 Budd Boetticher), The Alamo (1960 John Wayne), The War Lord (1965 Franklin Schaffner), Hombre (1967 Martin Ritt), The Arrangement (1968 Elia Kazan) and The Shootist (1976 Don Siegel).

He directed the final scenes of The Night of the Following Day (1968) at the insistence of Marlon Brando, as Brando could no longer tolerate what he considered to be the incompetence of director Hubert Cornfield.[citation needed] The film is generally considered the nadir of Brando's career. Boone, as usual, was cast as the heavy.

Boone starred as Hec Ramsey, a turn-of-the-20th-century Western-style detective who preferred to use his brain instead of his gun, in the TV series of the same name in the early 1970s. He once wryly noted to an interviewer in 1972, "You know, Hec Ramsey is a lot like Paladin, only fatter."[1] Boone returned to The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York — where he had once studied acting — to teach it, in the mid-1970s.

Boone was married three times: to Jane Hopper (1937  – 1940), Mimi Kelly (1949 – 1950), and Claire McAloon (1951), by whom he had a son, Peter.

In 1965, he came third in the Laurel Award for Best Action Performance — Sean Connery won first place with Goldfinger and Burt Lancaster won second place with The Train.

In his final role, Boone played Commodore Matthew Perry in Bushido Blade. He died soon afterward of throat cancer at age 63 in St. Augustine, Florida. His ashes were scattered in the ocean off Hawaii.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Movies

[edit] TV

[edit] Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

According to one trivia book, Paladin's first name was "Wire."[citation needed] This came from Paladin's business card, which read: "Have Gun Will Travel. Wire Paladin, San Francisco. Of course, the word Wire on the card referred to sending Paladin a telegram to request his services and was not meant to represent his first name."

[edit] External links