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IMDbPro

Richard Basehart(1914-1984)

  • Actor
  • Director
  • Additional Crew
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Richard Basehart
Knight Rider: Season 2
Play trailer0:59
Knight Rider (1982–1986)
18 Videos
99+ Photos
Despite many a powerful performance, this actor's actor never quite achieved the stardom he deserved. Ultimately, Richard Basehart became best-known to television audiences as Admiral Harriman Nelson, commander of the glass-nosed nuclear submarine 'S.S.R.N Seaview' in Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964), shown on ABC from 1964 to 1968. Basehart's distinctively deep, resonant voice also provided narrations in feature films, TV mini-series and for documentaries.

Born in Zanesville, Ohio, on August 14 1914, Basehart was one of four siblings born to a struggling and soon-to-be widowed editor of a local newspaper. Upon leaving college, he worked briefly as a radio announcer and then attempted to follow in his father's journalistic footsteps as a reporter. Controversy over one of his stories led to his departure from the paper and cleared the path to pursue acting as a career. In 1932, Basehart made his theatrical bow with the Wright Players Stock Company in his home town and subsequently spent five years playing varied and interesting roles at the Hedgerow Theatre in Philadelphia. From 1938, he began to work in New York on and off-Broadway. Seven years later he received the New York Drama Critics Circle Best Newcomer Award for "The Hasty Heart", a drama by John Patrick, in which Basehart played a dying Scottish soldier. In 1945, he received his first film offers. When he heard director Bretaigne Windust was seeking an authentic Scot for the lead role in The Hasty Heart, Basehart not only effected an authentic enough burr to win the part, but won also the 1945 New York Critic's Award as the most promising actor of the year. His accent was so good that a visiting leader of a Scottish clan told the actor he knew his clan.

Basehart made his debut on the big screen with Repeat Performance (1947) at Eagle-Lion, a minor film noir with Joan Leslie, followed at Warner Brothers with the Gothic Barbara Stanwyck thriller Cry Wolf (1947). His third picture finally got him critical plaudits for playing a sociopathic killer, relentlessly hunted through drainage tunnels in He Walked by Night (1948), a procedural police drama shot in a semi-documentary style. Variety gave a positive review, commenting "With this role, Basehart establishes himself as one of Hollywood's most talented finds in recent years. He heavily overshadows the rest of the cast..."

It was the first of many charismatic performances in which Basehart would excel at tormented or introverted characters, portraying angst, foreboding or mental anguish. His gallery of characters came to include the notorious Robespierre, chief architect of the Reign of Terror (1949), set during the French Revolution. He was one of the feuding Hatfields in Roseanna McCoy (1949) and in Fourteen Hours (1951) (based on a real 1938 Manhattan suicide) had a tour de force turn as a man perched on the high ledge of an office building threatening to jump. For much of the film's duration, the camera was firmly focused on the actor's face. Basehart later recalled "It was an actor's dream, in which I hogged the camera lens, and the role called on me to act mostly with my eyes, lips and face muscles". The New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther called his performance 'startling and poignant'.

Eschewing conventional movie stardom, Basehart meticulously selected and varied his roles, avoiding, as he put it, "stereotyping at the expense of not amassing an impressive bank account.'' In the wake of the sudden death of his first wife, Basehart left the U.S. for Italy. In March 1951, he got married a second time (to the actress Valentina Cortese) and appeared in a succession of European movies, playing the ill-fated clown Il Matto in Federico Fellini's classic La strada (1954); against type, essayed a swashbuckling nobleman reclaiming his titles and estate in Cartouche (1955), and (again for Fellini), played a member of a gang of grifters in Il Bidone (1955). He was also ideally cast as the mild-mannered Ishmael in John Huston's excellent version of Moby Dick (1956) and as Ivan, one of The Brothers Karamazov (1958).

By 1960, Basehart's second marriage had ended in divorce and the actor returned to America where he found movie opportunities few and far between. The small screen to some extent reinvigorated his career with numerous series guest appearances and his lengthy stint in the popular Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He also received critical praise for his role as Henry Wirtz, commandant of the Confederacy's most infamous prison camp, in the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning television drama The Andersonville Trial (1970).

Not only an active human rights campaigner, Basehart was also strongly opposed to the experimental use of animals. With his third wife Diana Lotery he set up the animal welfare charity, Actors and Others for Animals, in 1971. He died after suffering a series of strokes in Los Angeles on September 17 1984 at the age of 70.
BornAugust 31, 1914
DiedSeptember 17, 1984(70)
BornAugust 31, 1914
DiedSeptember 17, 1984(70)
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  • Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award

Photos140

Richard Basehart in Il Bidone (1955)
Richard Basehart and Broderick Crawford in Il Bidone (1955)
Richard Basehart in Il Bidone (1955)
Richard Basehart in Il Bidone (1955)
Richard Basehart and Giulietta Masina in Il Bidone (1955)
Richard Basehart and Giulietta Masina in Il Bidone (1955)
Richard Basehart, Alberto De Amicis, Franco Fabrizi, and Giulietta Masina in Il Bidone (1955)
Richard Basehart and Giulietta Masina in Il Bidone (1955)
Richard Basehart and Broderick Crawford in Il Bidone (1955)
Richard Basehart in Il Bidone (1955)
Richard Basehart in Il Bidone (1955)
Richard Basehart and Giulietta Masina in Il Bidone (1955)

Known for

Gregory Peck in Moby Dick (1956)
Moby Dick
7.3
  • Ishmael
  • 1956
Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart, and Giulietta Masina in La strada (1954)
La strada
8.0
  • The Fool
  • 1954
Fourteen Hours (1951)
Fourteen Hours
7.1
  • Robert Cosick
  • 1951
Richard Basehart and David Hedison in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964)
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
7.2
TV Series
  • Adm. Harriman Nelson
  • Admiral Nelson
  • Adm. Nelson
  • Admiral Harriman Nelson
  • Adm. Nelson puppet
  • Capt. Seamus O'Hara Nelson

Credits

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IMDbPro

Actor

  • David Hasselhoff in Knight Rider (1982)
    Knight Rider
  • The Crowded Life
  • Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
    Tales of the Unexpected
  • Mr. Merlin (1981)
    Mr. Merlin
  • Fred Grandy, Bernie Kopell, Ted Lange, Gavin MacLeod, and Lauren Tewes in The Love Boat (1977)
    The Love Boat
  • Peter O'Toole and Peter Strauss in Masada (1981)
    Masada
    • (uncredited)
  • Tony Curtis, Robert Urich, Phyllis Davis, and Judy Landers in Vega$ (1978)
    Vega$
  • Catherine Hicks in Marilyn: The Untold Story (1980)
    Marilyn: The Untold Story
  • The Christmas Songs
  • Being There (1979)
    Being There
  • Greatest Heroes of the Bible (1978)
    Greatest Heroes of the Bible
  • The Rebels (1979)
    The Rebels
  • W.E.B.
  • Lloyd Bridges and Robert Wagner in The Critical List (1978)
    The Critical List
  • Once Upon a Classic (1976)
    Once Upon a Classic

Director

  • Treasure Galleons

Additional Crew

  • Shirley MacLaine, Anne Bancroft, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Leslie Browne in The Turning Point (1977)
    The Turning Point
    • (uncredited)
  • In-development projects at IMDbPro

Videos18

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Trailer 2:33
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Trailer 1:10
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Trailer 1:42
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Official Trailer
Trailer 2:07
Official Trailer
Official Trailer
Trailer 2:24
Official Trailer
Official Trailer
Trailer 3:11
Official Trailer
Passport to China
Trailer 2:25
Passport to China
La Strada
Trailer 1:34
La Strada

Personal details

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  • Official sites
    • France's national library catalogue
    • Official Site
    • August 31, 1914
    • Zanesville, Ohio, USA
    • September 17, 1984
    • Los Angeles, California, USA(multiple strokes)
    • 1962 - September 17, 1984 (his death, 2 children)
    • Jackie Basehart
  • Other works
    TV commercial: Pontiac automobiles
  • Publicity listings
    • 6 Articles

Did you know

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  • Trivia
    He and his wife Diana were the founders of the organization, Actors and Others for Animals, in 1971. They had been driving on a freeway and were appalled when someone threw a dog onto the freeway from a vehicle in front of them. It was too late for that animal, but they vowed to make things different in the future for others.
  • Quotes
    Nothing irritates me more than actors who take all the money and then complain about how terribly limited TV is. That kind of talk only reflects on them.
    • Inquest Into a Bleeding Heart
      (1963)
      $10,000

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