Richard Harrison

Richard Harrison — Biography

Richard Harrison, born on 26 May 1936 in Salt Lake City, Utah, was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer; after moving to Los Angeles at seventeen, he met people from the film industry while working out at local gyms, which led him into acting and eventually to study under Sandy Meisner at 20th Century Fox.

His 1961 marriage to Loretta Nicholson, daughter of American International Pictures co-founder James H. Nicholson, brought him a three-picture deal with the studio and then nearly three decades in Italy, where his first starring role came in The Invincible Gladiator (1962). His best-known western was Gunfight at Red Sands (Duello Nel Texas, 1963), and he liked to joke that his greatest contribution to cinema was turning down Sergio Leone's offer of the lead in A Fistful of Dollars and recommending Clint Eastwood instead. He appeared in Antonio Margheriti's Vengeance (1968) and his own Eurospy vehicle Secret Agent Fireball (1965).

As the spaghetti western declined through the 1970s his career moved to lower-budget international productions in Egypt, Hong Kong, where he starred in Marco Polo, and Turkey, where he appeared in Anasının Gözü (1979); scenes of his were reportedly trimmed from Beast with a Gun (1977) at co-star Helmut Berger's request. In the 1980s he worked in Philippine Z-movies for Silver Star Film Company, later saying he had written some of their screenplays himself under a pseudonym.