Peter Breck
Encyclopedia
Joseph Peter Breck is an American
prolific character actor
of stage
, who has played roles on television
and in film
. The rugged, dark-haired Breck gained fame as Doc Holiday on the series "Maverick", but is best known for his role as Victoria Barkley's (Barbara Stanwyck
) hot-tempered, middle son Nick in the popular 1960s Western
, The Big Valley
.
USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV-42)
he studied drama at the University of Houston
. Breck made his debut in a film produced by Bert Freed
that was eventually released under the title The Beatnik
s. As well as performing in live theatre, Breck had several guest-starring roles on a number of popular series, such as Sea Hunt
, several episodes of Wagon Train
, Have Gun – Will Travel, Perry Mason
, and Gunsmoke
. In 1956, he and David Janssen
appeared in John Bromfield
's syndicated
series Sheriff of Cochise
in the episode "The Turkey Farmers". He appeared in another syndicated series too in the episode "The Deserter" of the American Civil War
drama Gray Ghost
, with Tod Andrews
in the title role.
When Robert Mitchum
saw him in George Bernard Shaw
's play The Man of Destiny
in Washington, D.C.
he offered Breck a role as a rival driver in 1958's
Thunder Road
. Mitchum set Breck up in Los Angeles
and as Breck did not have his own car, Mitchum lent him his own Jaguar. Mitchum introduced Breck to Dick Powell
who contracted him to Four Star Productions where he appeared in Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
. He also appeared with fellow guest star Diane Brewster
in the 1958 episode "The Lady Gambler" of the ABC
western
series Tombstone Territory
, starring Pat Conway
and Richard Eastham
. In 1958 Breck also appeared in an episode of Highway Patrol with Broderick Crawford.
In the 1959–1960 season, he starred as a gunfighter-turned-lawyer
lead in the NBC
western Black Saddle
, with secondary roles for Russell Johnson
, J. Pat O'Malley
, and Walter Burke
.
Breck was later a contract star with Warner Brothers Television where he appeared as Doc Holliday
on the series
Maverick
, a part that had been played twice earlier in the series by Gerald Mohr
and by Adam West
on Lawman (TV series)
. Breck appeared in several other Warners series of the time such as Cheyenne, 77 Sunset Strip
, The Roaring Twenties
, The Gallant Men
, and a 1969 episode of The Donald O'Connor Show
.
The first movie in which Breck was the top-billed star was Lad, A Dog (1962). The next year, he played the leading roles in both Samuel Fuller
's Shock Corridor
and the science-fiction horror film The Crawling Hand
. During this time, he also appeared on episodes of several more TV shows, such as The Outer Limits
, The Restless Gun
, Bonanza
, Perry Mason
, and The Virginian
.
series The Big Valley
, where he played Nick Barkley, ramrod
of the Barkley ranch and son to Barbara Stanwyck
's character Victoria Barkley. The second of four children, Nick was the hotheaded, short-tempered brother. Always spoiling for a fight and frequently wearing leather gloves, Breck's character took the slightest offense to the Barkley name personally and quickly made his displeasure known, as often with his fists as with his vociferous shouts. Often this proved to be a mistake and only through the calming influence of his mother and cooler-headed brothers, Jarrod (Richard Long
), Eugene (Charles Briles), and half-brother Heath (Lee Majors
), would a difficult situation be rectified. Breck, having been a Barbara Stanwyck fan since the 1940s, as a teenager, also developed a wonderful on- and off-screen chemistry with her, practicing longer lines and even being a ranch foreman on the set. After the show was canceled, he stayed close to her until her death.
and 1980s
were more TV guest-starring performances, on series such as Alias Smith and Jones
, Mission: Impossible
, McMillan & Wife, S.W.A.T.
, The Six Million Dollar Man
(with Lee Majors), The Incredible Hulk
, and The Dukes of Hazzard
, as well as roles as himself on Fantasy Island
, and The Fall Guy
which also starred former television "brother" Lee Majors.
In the mid-1980s, Breck moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
, with his wife Diane and their son Christoper. He was asked by a casting director to teach one class a week to young actors on film technique. That one-a-week class became a full time acting school - The Breck Academy - which he ran for ten years. In 1990, Breck appeared in the Canadian cult film Terminal City Ricochet
.
Before then, on January 20, 1990, while teaching at a drama school, he received word that his beloved TV mother/friend, Barbara Stanwyck
, had died. Barbara Stanwyck requested no funeral nor memorial.
In 1996, he appeared in an episode of the new version of The Outer Limits
.
His most recent TV performance was on an episode of John Doe
in 2002. In recent years, most of his film performances have been in undistributed films that are shown only at film festival
s.
In June 2010, Breck's wife Diane announced on his official website that the actor has been suffering from dementia and can no longer sign autographs for fans, although he still reads and enjoys their letters. Despite this diagnosis, she says he is still physically healthy and doesn't require medication.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
prolific character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
of stage
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
, who has played roles on television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and in film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
. The rugged, dark-haired Breck gained fame as Doc Holiday on the series "Maverick", but is best known for his role as Victoria Barkley's (Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
) hot-tempered, middle son Nick in the popular 1960s Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
, The Big Valley
The Big Valley
The Big Valley is an American television Western which ran on ABC from September 15, 1965, to May 19, 1969, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, as a California widowed mother. It was created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman...
.
Early career
After US Navy service on the aircraft carrierAircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV-42)
USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV-42)
USS Franklin D. Roosevelt was the second of three Midway class aircraft carriers. To her crew, she was known as the "Swanky Franky," "Foo-De-Roo," or "Rosie," with the last nickname probably the most popular. Roosevelt spent most of her active deployed career operating in the Mediterranean Sea as...
he studied drama at the University of Houston
University of Houston
The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
. Breck made his debut in a film produced by Bert Freed
Bert Freed
Bert Freed was a prolific American character actor, voice over actor, and the first actor to portray "Detective Columbo" on television.-Life and career:...
that was eventually released under the title The Beatnik
Beatnik
Beatnik was a media stereotype of the 1950s and early 1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s and violent film images, along with a cartoonish depiction of the real-life people and the spiritual quest in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical...
s. As well as performing in live theatre, Breck had several guest-starring roles on a number of popular series, such as Sea Hunt
Sea Hunt
Sea Hunt was an American adventure television series that was aired in syndication by Ziv Television Programs from 1958 to 1961 and was popular in syndication for decades afterwards. The series originally aired for four seasons, with 155 episodes produced...
, several episodes of Wagon Train
Wagon Train
Wagon Train is an American Western series that ran on NBC from 1957–62 and then on ABC from 1962–65...
, Have Gun – Will Travel, Perry Mason
Perry Mason
Perry Mason is a fictional character, a defense attorney who was the main character in works of detective fiction authored by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason was featured in more than 80 novels and short stories, most of which had a plot involving his client's murder trial...
, and Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
. In 1956, he and David Janssen
David Janssen
David Janssen was an American film and television actor who is best known for his starring role as Dr. Richard Kimble in the television series The Fugitive , the starring role in the 1950s hit detective series Richard Diamond, Private Detective , and as Harry Orwell on Harry O.In 1996 TV Guide...
appeared in John Bromfield
John Bromfield
John Bromfield was an American film and television actor.Bromfield was born in South Bend, Indiana. He played football and was a boxing champion in college. He served in the United States Navy. In 1948, he twice harpooned a whale in the documentary film Harpoon...
's syndicated
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
series Sheriff of Cochise
Sheriff of Cochise
Sheriff of Cochise , renamed U.S. Marshal , is a 58-episode syndicated western-themed crime drama set in Arizona and starring John Bromfield as law enforcement officer Frank Morgan. In the first two seasons, Morgan was sheriff of Cochise County...
in the episode "The Turkey Farmers". He appeared in another syndicated series too in the episode "The Deserter" of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
drama Gray Ghost
Gray Ghost (TV series)
The Gray Ghost is an American historical series which aired in syndication from October 10, 1957, to July 3, 1958. It depicts the true story of Major John Singleton Mosby, a Virginia officer in the Confederate Army, whose cunning and stealth earned him the nickname "Gray Ghost".-Synopsis:The Gray...
, with Tod Andrews
Tod Andrews
Tod Andrews was an American actor on the stage, screen, and television. Born in New York, he was raised in California. He studied acting and journalism at Washington State College.-Career:...
in the title role.
When Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
saw him in George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's play The Man of Destiny
The Man of Destiny
The Man of Destiny is an 1897 play by George Bernard Shaw. It was published as a part of Plays Pleasant, which also included Arms and the Man, Candida and You Never Can Tell. Shaw titled the volume Plays Pleasant in order to contrast it with his first book of plays, Plays Unpleasant....
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
he offered Breck a role as a rival driver in 1958's
1958 in film
The year 1958 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 16- "In the Money" by William Beaudine is released on this date. It would be the last installment of The Bowery Boys series which began back in 1946....
Thunder Road
Thunder Road
Thunder Road is the title of a 1958 drama–crime film about running moonshine in the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee in the early 1950s. It was directed by Arthur Ripley and starred Robert Mitchum, who also produced the film, co-wrote the screenplay, and is rumored to have directed much of the...
. Mitchum set Breck up in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and as Breck did not have his own car, Mitchum lent him his own Jaguar. Mitchum introduced Breck to Dick Powell
Dick Powell
Richard Ewing "Dick" Powell was an American singer, actor, producer, director and studio boss.Despite the same last name he was not related to William Powell, Eleanor Powell or Jane Powell.-Biography:...
who contracted him to Four Star Productions where he appeared in Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, sometimes simply called Zane Grey Theatre, is an American Western anthology series which ran on CBS from 1956 to 1961.-Overview:Zane Grey Theatre was created by Luke Short and Charles A. Wallace...
. He also appeared with fellow guest star Diane Brewster
Diane Brewster
Diane Brewster was an American television actress most noted for playing three distinctively different roles in US TV series of the 1950s and 60s: confidence trickster Samantha Crawford in Maverick; pretty young second-grade teacher Miss Canfield in Leave It to Beaver; and doomed wife Helen...
in the 1958 episode "The Lady Gambler" of the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
series Tombstone Territory
Tombstone Territory
Tombstone Territory is an American Western series starring Pat Conway and Richard Eastham. The series' first two seasons aired on ABC from 1957 to 1959...
, starring Pat Conway
Pat Conway
Patrick Douglas Conway, known as Pat Conway , was an American actor best known for his role as young but tough Sheriff Clay Hollister on the ABC and then syndicated western television series Tombstone Territory . He was a maternal grandson of silent film star Francis X...
and Richard Eastham
Richard Eastham
Richard Eastham, born as Dickinson Swift Eastham , was an American actor of stage, film, and television and a concert singer known for his deep baritone voice.-Tombstone Territory:...
. In 1958 Breck also appeared in an episode of Highway Patrol with Broderick Crawford.
In the 1959–1960 season, he starred as a gunfighter-turned-lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
lead in the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
western Black Saddle
Black Saddle
Black Saddle is an American Western series that ran for forty-four episodes on ABC from January 10, 1959 to May 6, 1960. The series was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television, and the original pilot was an episode of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, with Chris Alcaide playing Culhane.For...
, with secondary roles for Russell Johnson
Russell Johnson
Russell David Johnson is an American television and film actor best known as "The Professor" on the CBS television sitcom Gilligan's Island...
, J. Pat O'Malley
J. Pat O'Malley
James Patrick O'Malley was an English singer and character actor, who appeared in many American films and television programs during the 1940s–1970s, using the stage name J. Pat O'Malley...
, and Walter Burke
Walter Burke
Walter Burke was a prolific Irish-American character actor, of stage, film, and television. His small stature, and distinctive voice and face, made him easily recognizable in even the most minor of roles.- Early life :...
.
Breck was later a contract star with Warner Brothers Television where he appeared as Doc Holliday
Doc Holliday
John Henry "Doc" Holliday was an American gambler, gunfighter and dentist of the American Old West, who is usually remembered for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and his involvement in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral...
on the series
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
Maverick
Maverick (TV series)
Maverick is a western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins. The show ran from September 22, 1957 to July 8, 1962 on ABC and stars James Garner as Bret Maverick, a cagey, articulate cardsharp. Eight episodes into the first season, he was joined by Jack Kelly as his brother...
, a part that had been played twice earlier in the series by Gerald Mohr
Gerald Mohr
Gerald Mohr was an American radio, film and television character actor who appeared in over 4,000 radio plays, 73 films and over 100 television shows....
and by Adam West
Adam West
William West Anderson , better known by the stage name Adam West, is an American actor best known for his lead role in the Batman TV series and the film of the same name...
on Lawman (TV series)
Lawman (tv series)
Lawman is an American Western television series originally telecast from 1958 to 1962 starring John Russell as Marshal Dan Troop and featuring Peter Brown as Deputy Marshal Johnny McKay on the ABC Television Network. The series was set in Laramie, Wyoming during the mid to late 1870s. Warner Bros....
. Breck appeared in several other Warners series of the time such as Cheyenne, 77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip
77 Sunset Strip is an hour-length American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes....
, The Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties (TV series)
The Roaring 20s is an American drama series that aired on the ABC network beginning on October 15, 1960, and ending on September 21, 1962.-Synopsis:...
, The Gallant Men
The Gallant Men
The Gallant Men is a 1962-1963 ABC television series which depicted an infantry company of American soldiers fighting their way through Italy in World War II.-Description:...
, and a 1969 episode of The Donald O'Connor Show
The Donald O'Connor Show
The Donald O'Connor Show is an American musical situation comedy television series starring singer/dancer Donald O'Connor...
.
The first movie in which Breck was the top-billed star was Lad, A Dog (1962). The next year, he played the leading roles in both Samuel Fuller
Samuel Fuller
Samuel Michael Fuller was an American screenwriter, novelist, and film director known for low-budget genre movies with controversial themes.-Personal life:...
's Shock Corridor
Shock Corridor
Shock Corridor is a 1963 film, directed and written by Samuel Fuller. The film tells the story of a journalist who gets himself committed to a mental hospital in order to track an unsolved murder.-Plot:...
and the science-fiction horror film The Crawling Hand
The Crawling Hand
The Crawling Hand is a 1963 science fiction film directed by Herbert L. Strock, and starring Rod Lauren, Peter Breck, Allison Hayes, and Alan Hale, Jr...
. During this time, he also appeared on episodes of several more TV shows, such as The Outer Limits
The Outer Limits (1995 TV series)
The Outer Limits is an American television series that originally aired on Showtime,the Sci Fi Channel and in syndication between 1995 and 2002...
, The Restless Gun
The Restless Gun
The Restless Gun is a western television series that appeared on NBC between 1957 and 1959, with John Payne in the role of Vint Bonner, a wandering cowboy in the era after the American Civil War. A skilled gunfighter, Bonner is an idealistic person who prefers peaceful resolutions of conflict...
, Bonanza
Bonanza
Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...
, Perry Mason
Perry Mason (TV series)
Perry Mason is an American legal drama produced by Paisano Productions that ran from September 1957 to May 1966 on CBS. The title character, portrayed by Raymond Burr, is a fictional Los Angeles defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner...
, and The Virginian
The Virginian (TV series)
The Virginian is an American Western television series starring James Drury and Doug McClure, which aired on NBC from 1962 to 1971 for a total of 249 episodes. Filmed in color, The Virginian became television's first 90-minute western series...
.
The Big Valley
From 1965 to 1969, Breck starred in the ABC WesternWestern (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
series The Big Valley
The Big Valley
The Big Valley is an American television Western which ran on ABC from September 15, 1965, to May 19, 1969, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, as a California widowed mother. It was created by A.I. Bezzerides and Louis F. Edelman...
, where he played Nick Barkley, ramrod
Ramrod
A ramrod is a device used with early firearms to push the projectile up against the propellant . It is also commonly referred to as a "scouring stick"...
of the Barkley ranch and son to Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
's character Victoria Barkley. The second of four children, Nick was the hotheaded, short-tempered brother. Always spoiling for a fight and frequently wearing leather gloves, Breck's character took the slightest offense to the Barkley name personally and quickly made his displeasure known, as often with his fists as with his vociferous shouts. Often this proved to be a mistake and only through the calming influence of his mother and cooler-headed brothers, Jarrod (Richard Long
Richard Long (actor)
Richard Long was an American actor better known for his leading roles in several ABC television series, including The Big Valley, Nanny and the Professor and Bourbon Street Beat.-Early life:...
), Eugene (Charles Briles), and half-brother Heath (Lee Majors
Lee Majors
Lee Majors is an American television, film and voice actor, best known for his starring role as Colonel Steve Austin in The Six Million Dollar Man and as Colt Seavers in The Fall Guy ....
), would a difficult situation be rectified. Breck, having been a Barbara Stanwyck fan since the 1940s, as a teenager, also developed a wonderful on- and off-screen chemistry with her, practicing longer lines and even being a ranch foreman on the set. After the show was canceled, he stayed close to her until her death.
After The Big Valley
Most of his roles in the 1970s1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
and 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
were more TV guest-starring performances, on series such as Alias Smith and Jones
Alias Smith and Jones
Alias Smith and Jones is an American Western series that originally aired on ABC from 1971 to 1973. It stars Pete Duel as Hannibal Heyes and Ben Murphy as Jedediah "Kid" Curry, a pair of Western cousin outlaws trying to reform...
, Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible is an American television series which was created and initially produced by Bruce Geller. It chronicled the missions of a team of secret American government agents known as the Impossible Missions Force . The leader of the team was Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves, except in...
, McMillan & Wife, S.W.A.T.
S.W.A.T. (TV series)
----S.W.A.T. is a 1970s American television series about the adventures of the WCPD's Olympic Division Special Weapons And Tactics team operating in an unidentified California city....
, The Six Million Dollar Man
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Six Million Dollar Man is an American television series about a former astronaut with bionic implants working for the OSI...
(with Lee Majors), The Incredible Hulk
The Incredible Hulk (1977 TV series)
The Incredible Hulk is an American television series based on the Marvel comic book character of the same name created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The pilot episodes were a pair of TV movies on the CBS network beginning on November 4, 1977; the series soon followed, airing from March 10, 1978 to...
, and The Dukes of Hazzard
The Dukes of Hazzard
The Dukes of Hazzard is an American television series that aired on the CBS television network from 1979 to 1985.The series was inspired by the 1975 film Moonrunners, which was also created by Gy Waldron and had many identical or similar character names and concepts.- Overview :The Dukes of Hazzard...
, as well as roles as himself on Fantasy Island
Fantasy Island
Fantasy Island is the title of two separate but related American fantasy television series, both originally airing on the ABC television network.-Original series:...
, and The Fall Guy
The Fall Guy
The Fall Guy is an American action/adventure television program produced for ABC and originally broadcast from November 4, 1981 to May 2, 1986. It starred Lee Majors, Douglas Barr, and Heather Thomas. Majors and Barr are the only two actors to appear in all 112 episodes of the series...
which also starred former television "brother" Lee Majors.
In the mid-1980s, Breck moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, with his wife Diane and their son Christoper. He was asked by a casting director to teach one class a week to young actors on film technique. That one-a-week class became a full time acting school - The Breck Academy - which he ran for ten years. In 1990, Breck appeared in the Canadian cult film Terminal City Ricochet
Terminal City Ricochet
Terminal City Ricochet is a 1990 film by Filipino director Zale Dalen. The name was taken from a hockey team called the Terminal City Ricochets....
.
Before then, on January 20, 1990, while teaching at a drama school, he received word that his beloved TV mother/friend, Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
, had died. Barbara Stanwyck requested no funeral nor memorial.
In 1996, he appeared in an episode of the new version of The Outer Limits
The Outer Limits (1995 TV series)
The Outer Limits is an American television series that originally aired on Showtime,the Sci Fi Channel and in syndication between 1995 and 2002...
.
His most recent TV performance was on an episode of John Doe
John Doe (TV series)
John Doe is an American science fiction drama television series that aired on Fox during the 2002–2003 TV season.-Synopsis:"I woke up in an island off the coast of Seattle. I didn't know how I got there ... or who I was. But I did seem to know everything else. There were things about me I didn't...
in 2002. In recent years, most of his film performances have been in undistributed films that are shown only at film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
s.
In June 2010, Breck's wife Diane announced on his official website that the actor has been suffering from dementia and can no longer sign autographs for fans, although he still reads and enjoys their letters. Despite this diagnosis, she says he is still physically healthy and doesn't require medication.