
Acting
Richard Basehart
Born 1914-08-31 · Zanesville, Ohio, USA
John Richard Basehart (August 31, 1914 – September 17, 1984) was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson. One of his most notable film roles was the acrobat known as "the Fool" in the acclaimed Italian film La strada directed by Federico Fellini. He also appeared as the killer in the film noir classic He Walked by Night (1948), as a psychotic member of the Hatfield clan in Roseanna McCoy (1949), as Ishmael in Moby Dick (1956), and in the drama Decision Before Dawn (1951). He was married to Italian Academy Award-nominated actress Valentina Cortese, with whom he had one son before their divorce in 1960. Cortese and Basehart also costarred in Robert Wise's The House on Telegraph Hill (1951). Basehart was also noted for his deep, distinctive voice and was prolific as a narrator of many television and movie projects ranging from features to documentaries. In 1980, Basehart narrated the mini-series 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. He appeared in the pilot episode of the television series Knight Rider as billionaire Wilton Knight. He is the narrator at the beginning of the show's credits. In 1971, Basehart played "Captain Sligo", a comical Irishman with a pet buffalo who negotiates a flawed but legal cattle purchase and unconventionally courts a widow with two children, played by Salome Jens, in CBS's western series, Gunsmoke, with James Arness. Basehart appeared in an episode of The Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-O, and as Hannibal Applewood, an abusive schoolteacher in Little House on the Prairie in 1976. In 1972, he appeared in the Columbo episode Dagger of the Mind in which he and Honor Blackman played a husband-and-wife theatrical team who were loose parodies of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. In the feature realm, he played a supporting role as a doctor in Rage (1972), a theatrical feature starring and directed by George C. Scott. He made a few TV movies including Sole Survivor (1970) and The Birdmen (1971). Both were based on true stories during World War II. He died at age 70 following a series of strokes. One month before his death, Basehart was an announcer for the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Acting credits
6.5In 1870s New Mexico, a half-breed kills a bigoted sheriff in self-defense but the posse that eventually hunts him finds itself in dangerous territory.
Chato's Land
1972
7.1In 1841, young Ishmael signs up for service aboard the Pequod, a whaler sailing out of New Bedford. The ship is under the command of Captain Ahab, a strict disciplinarian who exhorts his men to find Moby Dick, the great white whale. Ahab lost his leg to that creature and is desperate for revenge. As the crew soon learns, he will stop at nothing to gain satisfaction.
Moby Dick
1956
6.1Film producer Reggie Wilson is worried he may have a dual personality. Fleeing Hollywood, he finds himself in England and married to the studio boss's daughter after which he quickly rises through the studio ranks. Then the letters begin to appear from a lovesick American actress who wants to know why he has thrown her over.
The Intimate Stranger
1956
6.1A US government germ warfare lab has had an accident. The first theory is that one of the germs has been released and killed several scientists. The big fear is that a more virulent strain, named The Satan Bug because all life can be killed off by it should it escape, may have been stolen.
The Satan Bug
1965
7.9When Gelsomina, a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò to be his wife and partner, she loyally endures her husband's coldness and abuse as they travel the Italian countryside performing together. Soon Zampanò must deal with his jealousy and conflicted feelings about Gelsomina when she finds a kindred spirit in Il Matto, the carefree circus fool, and contemplates leaving Zampanò.
La Strada
1954
5.0This Western is set in the Mexican valley of Sonora not that far south of the state of Arizona. It's just after the American Civil War, and a former Confederate officer, Mike Summers has taken refuge in a small town in the valley. He has married and is hoping to live in peace the rest of his life. Instead, he and his wife and the rest of the town are suffering the depredations of a brutal gunman, Danny Pose, and his gang of outlaws. Summers holds off picking up a gun because of his personal vow of non-violence. But the situation deteriorates and a new ally comes into the picture, Steve Fallon, a wandering gunslinger who may not be able to handle the bad guys alone.
The Savage Guns
1961
7.6A simple-minded gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. When the man dies, Chance is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television.
Being There
1979
6.6Unhappily married, Julia Sturges decides to go to America with her two children on the Titanic. Her husband, Richard also arranges passage on the luxury liner so as to have custody of their two children. All this fades to insignificance once the ship hits an iceberg.
Titanic
1953
5.7A ship-wrecked man floats ashore on an island in the Pacific Ocean. The island is inhabited by a scientist, Dr. Moreau, who in an experiment has turned beasts into human beings.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
1977
6.5Ryevsk, Russia, 1870. Tensions abound in the Karamazov family. Fyodor is a wealthy libertine who holds his purse strings tightly. His four grown sons include Dmitri, the eldest, an elegant officer, always broke and at odds with his father, betrothed to Katya, herself lovely and rich. The other brothers include a sterile aesthete, a factotum who is a bastard, and a monk. Family tensions erupt when Dmitri falls in love with one of his father's mistresses, the coquette Grushenka. Two brothers see Dmitri's jealousy of their father as an opportunity to inherit sooner. Acts of violence lead to the story's conclusion: trials of honor, conscience, forgiveness, and redemption.
The Brothers Karamazov
1958
7.3A young man, morally destroyed by his parents not loving him and by the fear of being not capable to make his girlfriend happy, rises on the ledge of a building with the intention of committing suicide. A policeman makes every effort to argue him out of it.
Fourteen Hours
1951
6.1On New Year's Eve 1946, Sheila Page kills her husband Barney. She wishes that she could relive 1946 and avoid the mistakes that she made throughout the year. Her wish comes true but cheating fate proves more difficult than she anticipated.
Repeat Performance
1947
6.7Roy Martin aka Roy Morgan is a burglar and former war-time Radio & Electronics Engineer who listens in to radio police calls, allowing him to stay one step ahead of the cops.
He Walked by Night
1949
NRIn the last days of World War II, two English airmen are captured by an ordinary German citizen, who, instead of handing them over to the authorities, keeps them prisoner in his cellar, neglecting to tell them when the war ends.
Playhouse 90: The Hiding Place
1960
6.8Warren Quimby manages a drugstore while trying to keep his volatile wife, Claire, happy. However, when Claire leaves him for a liquor store salesman, Warren can no longer bear it. He decides to assume a new identity in order to murder his wife's lover without leaving a trace. Along the way, his plans are complicated by an attractive neighbor, as well as a shocking discovery that opens up a new world of doubts and accusations.
Tension
1949
6.3A composer and a French film star, both of whom are married to others, meet and fall in love while shooting a film in the United States.
Love Is a Funny Thing
1969
7.2Military investigator Colonel Edwards is assigned a case involving Major Cargill, a Korean War POW who is accused of treason. Although Cargill admits his guilt and Edwards' superiors are impatiently pushing Edwards to move the case to court martial, Edwards becomes convinced of Cargill's innocence.
Time Limit
1957
7.0George Washington struggles to hold his army together at a critical point during the Revolutionary War.
Valley Forge
1975
5.2A former Nazi living in Hong Kong has developed a nerve gas that he's hidden in a sewer attached to a time bomb. Police race against time to find the stash before it's unleashed on the city.
...and millions will die!
1973
6.3A dramatization of the incident in 1972 when Arab terrorists broke into the Olympic compound in Munich and murdered 11 Israeli athletes.
21 Hours at Munich
1976
6.1A woman uncovers deadly secrets when she visits her late husband's family.
Cry Wolf
1947
5.7A pair of lovers plot to kill the woman's rich husband.
Portrait in Black
1960
6.4Concentration camp survivor Victoria Kowelska finds herself involved in mystery, greed, and murder when she assumes the identity of a dead friend in order to gain passage to America.
The House on Telegraph Hill
1951
6.3When a novel virus devastates the world in 1976, Dr. Earnshaw notices that it resembles a virus that a Dr. Henderson found a cure for in 1871 Chicago. However, the doctor perished and his notes were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire. Earnshaw is approached by a government agent, Jeffrey Adams, who informs him of a Top Secret time traveling technology and asks for his assistance in finding Dr. Henderson and his cure. But their adventure becomes a race against time when a glitch sends them back to the day before the fire instead of the planned four days.
Time Travelers
1976