| Richard Hart | |
|---|---|
in Desire Me (1947) |
|
| Born | April 14, 1915 Providence, Rhode Island, USA |
| Died | January 2, 1951 (aged 35) New York City, New York, USA |
| Years active | 1947-1951 |
| Spouse | Mrs. Hart (1938)(1 son) Louise Valery (1945-1951) (his death) 2 children |
| Partner | Phyllis Eileen Buswell (1 son Richard Lee Hart) Felicia Montealegre (his death)[1] |
Richard Comstock Hart (April 14, 1915 – January 2, 1951) was an American actor. Hart appeared in film and on TV, but his chief love was the stage.
Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Hart was the son and grandson of Henry Clay Hart and Richard Borden Comstock, leading Rhode Island lawyers. He went to Moses Brown School and Brown University, where he was an all-American soccer player. He married his teenage sweetheart in 1938, and had one son Christopher. Hart then worked as a journalist and at the Gorham Silver Company before becoming seriously interested in acting through a summer theater in Tiverton, Rhode Island. That soon led to studying acting in New York City, some off-Broadway roles and divorce from his wife, who chose to stay in Providence with their son.
Hart's big break came when, as resident juvenile in a summer theater at the Brattle Playhouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he played John the witch boy, the lead role in a new play trying out there, Dark of the Moon. The Shuberts took it to Broadway (1945), keeping little of the original company except Hart, who won a Theatre World Award for his debut. A Broadway run of 318 performances then led to a national tour and a contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer.
For MGM, Hart appeared as a leading man in Green Dolphin Street (1947), where he was loved by two sisters, played by Lana Turner and Donna Reed (and supported by the great MGM stock company). In Desire Me (1947), as the villain who takes Greer Garson away from Robert Mitchum, and in the more forgettable Reign of Terror (1949). In B.F.'s Daughter (1948), Hart played a supporting role as the jilted first love of the title character, played by Barbara Stanwyck.
He married an actress he had met in Dark of the Moon, had two daughters, then voluntarily left MGM to go back to the stage. Back on Broadway he appeared in a flop, Leaf and Bough then took over for Sam Wanamaker in Goodbye, My Fancy and had a hit as the original Uncle Desmonde in The Happy Time opposite Claude Dauphin and the young Eva Gabor.
He also did a lot of live television on Silver Theater, Ford Theatre Hour, Masterpiece Playhouse, and Studio One, playing such roles as Eilert Lovborg (Hedda Gabler) and Marc Antony (Julius Caesar). He had played four episodes as Ellery Queen in the DuMont Television Network series The Adventures of Ellery Queen -- the first to do so on TV—when he died suddenly at age 35 of a heart attack.
Hart's surviving acknowledged children are:
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