Richard Long (actor)
Encyclopedia
Richard Long was an American actor better known for his leading roles in several 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...

 television 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...

, including 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...

,
Nanny and the Professor
Nanny and the Professor
Nanny and the Professor is a U.S. fantasy situation comedy created by AJ Carothers and Thomas L. Miller for 20th Century Fox Television. During pre-production, the proposed title was Nanny Will Do. The series first aired as a mid-season replacement on January 21, 1970, on ABC and was last telecast...

and Bourbon Street Beat
Bourbon Street Beat
Bourbon Street Beat is a private detective series which aired on the ABC network from 1959-1960 and featured Andrew Duggan as Cal Calhoun, Richard Long as Rex Randolph, Van Williams as Kenny Madison, and Arlene Howell as Melody Lee Mercer, the secretary at the New Orleans detective agency in which...

.

Early life

Long was the fifth of six children born in Chicago, Illinois, to Sherman D. Long, a commercial artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 who operated his own studio
Studio
A studio is an artist's or worker's workroom, or the catchall term for an artist and his or her employees who work within that studio. This can be for the purpose of architecture, painting, pottery , sculpture, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, radio or television...

, and Dale McCord Long. The family lived in several locations in Illinois before settling in Evanston
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...

.
Long attended grammar school
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...

 in Evanston, Waller High School
High school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

 in Chicago, and then the Evanston Township High School
Evanston Township High School
Evanston Township High School District 202, is a four-year, comprehensive high school occupying a campus in Evanston, Illinois, a Chicago suburb along the Lake Michigan shore. ETHS serves the multiracial city of Evanston and a small portion of the neighboring village of Skokie, for a total...

. In 1944, the family relocated to Hollywood, California, and Long attended Hollywood High School
Hollywood High School
Hollywood High School is a Los Angeles Unified School District high school located at the intersection of North Highland Avenue and West Sunset Boulevard in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California.-History:...

 for his senior year. Long said that as a teenager he had "no intention of becoming an actor. I took senior drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 class because it was a snap course, and I needed the credit for my English requirement"
.

At Hollywood High School
Hollywood High School
Hollywood High School is a Los Angeles Unified School District high school located at the intersection of North Highland Avenue and West Sunset Boulevard in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California.-History:...

, Long caught the eye of a talent scout from Universal
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

-International by accident. Casting director Jack Murton gave a ride to a couple of students and asked them if a school play was scheduled. The boys told Murton about the excellent male lead actor, Richard Long. In 1946, Long was hence cast in his first film, Tomorrow Is Forever
Tomorrow Is Forever
Tomorrow Is Forever is a 1946 black-and-white film distributed by RKO Radio Pictures, directed by Irving Pichel, starring Claudette Colbert, Orson Welles and George Brent. The music score is by Max Steiner...

as Drew, the son of Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert
Claudette Colbert was a French-born American-based actress of stage and film.Born in Paris, France and raised in New York City, Colbert began her career in Broadway productions during the 1920s, progressing to film with the advent of talking pictures...

. The role had been unfilled for months, and producers selected Long who most closely matched the credentials required.

Early in his career, Long appeared in several films as a juvenile lead
Child actor
The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion, the latter is also called a former child actor...

, including four of the nine Ma and Pa Kettle
Ma and Pa Kettle
Ma and Pa Kettle are comic film characters of the successful film series of the same name, produced by Universal Studios, in the late '40s and '50s. They are a hillbilly couple with fifteen children whose lives turn upside-down when they win a model-home-of-the-future in a slogan-writing contest...

pictures. He was cast as Tom Kettle, the eldest son of the characters played by Percy Kilbride
Percy Kilbride
Percy W. Kilbride was an American character actor. The son of Irish immigrants, he made a career of playing country hicks, most memorably as Pa Kettle in the Ma and Pa Kettle series of feature films.-Career:...

 and Marjorie Main
Marjorie Main
Marjorie Main was an American character actress, mainly at MGM, perhaps best known for her role as Ma Kettle in a series of ten Ma and Pa Kettle movies.-Early life and career:...

. His second film was the Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

's The Stranger
The Stranger (1946 film)
The Stranger is an American film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, Edward G. Robinson, and Loretta Young. The film was based on an Oscar-nominated screenplay written by Victor Trivas. Sam Spiegel was the film's producer, and the film's musical score is by Bronisław Kaper...

as Noah, the brother of Loretta Young
Loretta Young
Loretta Young was an American actress. Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953...

's character. He also played "Jeff Taylor" in The Life of Riley and played "Frank James" in the 1950 movie Kansas Raiders. He moved into leading man
Leading man
Leading man or leading gentleman is an informal term for the actor who plays a love interest to the leading actress in a film or play. A leading man is usually an all rounder; capable of singing, dancing, and acting at a professional level, but never outshining his female co-star...

 status in horror movies such as Cult of the Cobra
Cult of the Cobra
Cult of the Cobra is a horror film, released by Universal Pictures and starring Faith Domergue, Richard Long, Jack Kelly, William Reynolds and David Janssen. In it, the discoverers of a secret cult of women who can transform into cobras begin to die one by one...

(1954), and House on Haunted Hill
House on Haunted Hill
House on Haunted Hill is a 1959 American B movie horror film from Allied Artists. It was directed by William Castle, written by Robb White, and starring Vincent Price as eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren. He and his fourth wife, Annabelle, have invited five people to the house for a "Haunted...

(1959) before he achieved considerable success on television, including the series Bourbon Street Beat
Bourbon Street Beat
Bourbon Street Beat is a private detective series which aired on the ABC network from 1959-1960 and featured Andrew Duggan as Cal Calhoun, Richard Long as Rex Randolph, Van Williams as Kenny Madison, and Arlene Howell as Melody Lee Mercer, the secretary at the New Orleans detective agency in which...

(1959–60). He also appeared on episodes of Hey, Jeannie!
Hey, Jeannie!
Hey, Jeannie! is a 32-episode half-hour situation comedy starring Jeannie Carson as a young Scottish woman living in New York City. Twenty-six segments aired on CBS from September 8, 1956 to May 4, 1957 in the Saturday slot following The Gale Storm Show and preceding the western series Gunsmoke.Six...

, The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone is an American television anthology series created by Rod Serling. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist...

, 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 Alfred Hitchcock Hour and The Tenderfoot
The Tenderfoot (1964)
The Tenderfoot is a three-part live action television miniseries comedy Western film produced in 1964 for Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. It is based on James H. Tevis' book Arizona in the 50s. It was directed by Robert L...

(1964) for Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

's Wonderful World of Color. Long played the recurring role of "Gentleman Jack Darby" in four episodes of 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...

beginning in 1958, including the famous "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres
Shady Deal at Sunny Acres
Shady Deal at Sunny Acres, starring James Garner and Jack Kelly, remains the most famous and widely discussed episode of the Western comedy television series Maverick. Written by series creator Roy Huggins and Douglas Heyes and directed by Leslie H...

" installment.

In 1963, Long was cast in the MGM romantic musical
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

 Follow the Boys
Follow the Boys (1963 film)
Follow the Boys is a 1963 comedy film and also the theme song which was a Top 20 hit for Connie Francis.-The film:Directed by Richard Thorpe and shot on location on the French and Italian Riviera, Follow the Boys was MGM's second film vehicle for its label's top recording artist Connie Francis...

, along with costars Connie Francis
Connie Francis
Connie Francis is an American pop singer of Italian heritage and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1950s and 1960s. Although her chart success waned in the second half of the 1960s, Francis remained a top concert draw...

, Paula Prentiss
Paula Prentiss
Paula Ragusa , better known by her stage name Paula Prentiss, is an American actress well-known for her film roles in Where the Boys Are, Man's Favorite Sport?, The Stepford Wives, What's New Pussycat?, The Black Marble, and The Parallax View and her co-starring role in the television situation...

, and Roger Perry
Roger Perry
Roger Perry is an American film and television actor whose career began in the late 1950s.In the 1960-1961 television season, Perry portrayed a handsome young attorney, Jim Harrigan, Jr., in the ABC and Desilu Studios sitcom Harrigan and Son, with co-stars Pat O'Brien, Helen Kleeb, and Georgine...

.

Television

In 1965, at the age of thirty-eight, Long began his role as attorney
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...

 Jarrod Barkley, oldest son to ranch
Ranch
A ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western United States and Canada, though...

er Victoria Barkley (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...

), in 112 episodes 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...

, the last of the major Four Star Television
Four Star Television
Four Star Television, also called Four Star International, was an American television production company. Founded in 1952 as Four Star Productions by prominent Hollywood actors Dick Powell, David Niven, Ida Lupino, and Charles Boyer, the company produced many well-known shows of the early days of...

 series, a 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...

 which ran on ABC from 1965–1969. The series was set in the 1870s. Long also directed
Television director
A television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...

 several episodes of The Big Valley. In 1953, Long had costarred with Stanwyck in the film All I Desire
All I Desire
All I Desire is a 1953 drama film starring Barbara Stanwyck as an actress who returns to visit her husband and children after having run off with another man years before...

.

In 1970–71, he and Juliet Mills starred in the ABC sitcom Nanny and the Professor. Long played widowed college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...

 professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 Harold Everett, and Mills was Phoebe Figalilly, the English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 housekeeper and nanny for Long's three children. In 1973 he starred alongside Julie Harris
Julie Harris
Julia Ann "Julie" Harris is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1994, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame...

 in the short-lived series Thicker than Water. In 1974, Long appeared on the television game show, Match Game
Match Game
Match Game is an American television game show in which contestants attempted to match celebrities' answers to fill-in-the-blank questions...

. He also finished a television movie called Death Cruise, which was his last work.

Early death

Long had cardiac problems throughout his adult life and had suffered a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

 in the latter 1950s. As a boy, he had suffered pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...

, which apparently weakened his heart. He was also a heavy smoker
Smoking
Smoking is a practice in which a substance, most commonly tobacco or cannabis, is burned and the smoke is tasted or inhaled. This is primarily practised as a route of administration for recreational drug use, as combustion releases the active substances in drugs such as nicotine and makes them...

 and drinker
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....

. He died December 21, 1974, at age 47, after suffering multiple heart attacks at Tarzana Treatment Centers
Tarzana Treatment Centers
Tarzana Treatment Centers is a community-based, non-profit organization providing integrated healthcare that includes behavioral health, primary medical care, mental health and addiction treatment. TTC was incorporated in 1972 as Free Men, Inc., and later changed its name to Tarzana Treatment...

 in Los Angeles. He was cremated
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....

, and his ashes were scattered at sea.

Personal life

Long served in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 during the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

. He was twice married. His first wife of fourteen months, actress Suzan Ball (a cousin of Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...

) died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

 in 1955 at the age of twenty-one. In 1957, Long married actress and model Mara Corday
Mara Corday
Mara Corday is a showgirl, model, actress, Playboy Playmate and a 1950s cult figure....

 (birth name Marilyn Watts), with whom he had three children, Carey (born 1957), Valerie (born 1958), and Gregory (born 1960).

A few years after her husband's passing in 1974, Corday's friend Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...

 offered her a chance to return to filmmaking with a role in his 1977 film The Gauntlet.

Long was a brother-in-law of actor Marshall Thompson
Marshall Thompson
Marshall Thompson was an American film and television actor.He was born James Marshall Thompson in Peoria, Illinois. In 1943 Thompson, known for his boy-next-door good looks, was signed by Universal Pictures...

, with whom he appeared in the 1955 film Cult of the Cobra
Cult of the Cobra
Cult of the Cobra is a horror film, released by Universal Pictures and starring Faith Domergue, Richard Long, Jack Kelly, William Reynolds and David Janssen. In it, the discoverers of a secret cult of women who can transform into cobras begin to die one by one...

.

External links

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