1. Richard Basehart won two National Board of Review Awards, for his performances in Fourteen Hours and Moby Dick, and was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Time Limit.
23 Facts About Richard Basehart
1. 2.
Richard Basehart portrayed Wilton Knight in the pilot episode of the TV series Knight Rider, and provided the narration that was heard during the opening credits throughout the entire series.
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Richard Basehart appeared in a number of British and Italian films in the mid-1950s, including Federico Fellini's La Strada and Il Bidone.
4.
Richard Basehart narrated a wide range of television and film projects.
5.
In 1960, Richard Basehart received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the motion picture industry.
6.
Richard Basehart worked as a reporter at his father's newspaper and as a radio announcer in Zanesville and Columbus, Ohio, before entering a stage career at the Hedgerow Theatre in Pennsylvania.
7.
Richard Basehart won the 1945 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Most Promising Young Actor for his starring role in John Patrick's play The Hasty Heart, which was adapted into a 1949 film of the same name.
8.
Richard Basehart made his film debut with Repeat Performance.
9.
Richard Basehart soon appeared as the killer in the film noir classic Richard Basehart Walked by Night for Eagle-Lion, then he appeared as a psychotic member of the Hatfield clan in Roseanna McCoy, as Maximilien Robespierre in the period film noir Reign of Terror, as a timid husband in Tension, as Ishmael in Moby Dick, in the drama Decision Before Dawn, George S Healey in Titanic and as Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov.
10.
Richard Basehart portrayed the title character in Hitler, and a high priest in Kings of the Sun.
11.
From 1964 to 1968, Richard Basehart played the lead role, Admiral Harriman Nelson, on Irwin Allen's first foray into science-fiction television, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
12.
Richard Basehart appeared in the pilot episode of the television series Knight Rider as billionaire Wilton Knight.
13.
Richard Basehart is the narrator at the beginning of the show's credits.
14.
Richard Basehart accepted the lead role in the 1962 film Hitler.
15.
Richard Basehart appeared in "Probe 7, Over and Out", an episode of The Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-O, and as Hannibal Applewood, an abusive schoolteacher in Little House on the Prairie in 1976.
16.
In 1972, Richard Basehart appeared in the Columbo episode "Dagger of the Mind", in which Honor Blackman and he played a husband-and-wife theatrical team who accidentally kill Sir Roger Haversham, the producer of their rendition of Macbeth.
17.
Richard Basehart made a few TV movies, including Sole Survivor and The Birdmen.
18.
Richard Basehart narrated a wide range of television and movie projects.
19.
In 1980, Richard Basehart narrated the miniseries written by Peter Arnett called Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War that covered Vietnam and its battles from the Japanese surrender on September 2,1945, to the final American embassy evacuation on April 30,1975.
20.
One month before his death, Richard Basehart narrated a poem during the extinguishing of the flame at the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics.
21.
Richard Basehart died in Los Angeles on September 17,1984, following a series of strokes.
22.
Richard Basehart's body was cremated, and the ashes interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
23.
Richard Basehart died eight days before Walter Pidgeon, his film counterpart in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.