ACTOR
Richard Boone
- Known for
- The Shootist (1976), The Hobbit (1977), The Big Sleep (1978), Have Gun - Will Travel (1957)
27 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
Richard Boone is an actor best known for The Shootist, The Hobbit and The Big Sleep.
All facts (27)
- #001
Richard Boone's great-great-great-great-great-grandfather George Boone was the brother of the frontiersman Daniel Boone and of Squire Boone.
- #002
Richard Boone served in the United States Navy during World War II.
- #003
Late in life, Richard Boone taught acting classes at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida.
- #004
Richard Boone reportedly struggled with alcoholism for much of his life, partly because of his experiences in World War II.
- #005
Richard Boone turned down the role played by Jack Lord in Hawaii Five-O (1968).
- #006
Richard Boone was a sixth cousin of the singer and actor Pat Boone; Richard's five-times-great-grandparents Squire Boone and Sarah Morgan were also Pat Boone's five-times-great-grandparents.
- #007
Richard Boone was actually being examined by a dentist when a tumor was discovered. Shortly afterward he was diagnosed with throat cancer.
- #008
Richard Boone directed the final scenes of The Night of the Following Day (1969) at the insistence of its star Marlon Brando, who could no longer tolerate director Hubert Cornfield's ineptitude. The film is generally considered the low point of Brando's career, but it did not harm Boone, who had been cast in the heavy role.
- #009
Before the United States entered World War II, Richard Boone considered becoming a painter.
- #010
After being diagnosed with throat cancer, Richard Boone refused treatment and became a recluse.
- #011
Richard Boone was cast as "Old Lodge Skins" in Little Big Man (1970), but the role ultimately went to Chief Dan George, a real Native American.
- #012
Republicans wanted Richard Boone to run for political office, but he refused.
- #013
Later in life, because of a similar appearance — salt-and-pepper hair and a distinctive mustache — Richard Boone was sometimes confused with the actor Charles Bronson, who was enjoying a highly active film career as an action star while Boone's own career wound down in the 1970s. The two men were in fact friends, and Bronson guest-starred several times on the television series "Medic," in which Boone was the lead star in the 1950s.
- #014
Richard Boone's later career was severely affected by his chronic alcoholism. He walked off the set of God's Gun (1976) before recording his dialogue, and as a result his voice in the film had to be dubbed by someone else.
- #015
Richard Boone's father was of English, Scottish, German and Welsh descent, and his maternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants. Boone was proud of his Jewish heritage and appeared in Madron (1970), the first western filmed in Israel. In 1979 he received an award from Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for his contributions to Israeli cinema.
- #016
Richard Boone turned down the role played by Robert Shaw in The Sting (1973).
- #017
In the December 14, 1957 episode of Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), Richard Boone found himself stripped to the waist by Apaches and bound spread-eagled between four stakes driven into the ground. The scene was so vivid that lead actors in other Western television films soon found themselves in similar situations — most notably Robert Horton in Wagon Train (1957), Ralph Taeger in Hondo (1967), and Peter Brown and William Smith in Laredo (1965).
- #018
Richard Boone enjoyed weightlifting.
- #019
In the last year of his life, Richard Boone was appointed a cultural ambassador of Florida.
- #020
Richard Boone's only child with his third wife, Claire McAloon, was Peter Boone, who was named after Richard's great-great-great-grandfather.
- #021
He usually smoked 60 to 100 cigarettes a day.
- #022
He was a chain smoker.
- #023
In the 1940s in San Francisco, Richard Boone was married for a time to Jane Hopper of Sausalito, CA; both studied art and drama at the California Institute of Art. The two were very good friends and drank, but the marriage did not work out and they separated and divorced. In 1945 Jane became pregnant from a relationship with Richard Stiegler of Connecticut, a recently discharged naval captain, and although she and Richard had separated, he saw Jane through her pregnancy and the birth of a baby girl on June 17, 1946. The baby was named "Melissa Boone" at birth, but because it was difficult at the time for an unmarried woman to have a child, the baby girl was given up for adoption. As a result she was adopted by Dr. and Mrs. Douglas G. Campbell of San Francisco and took the name "Gail Russell Campbell." Jane's family recounts many wild episodes in her relationship with Richard, including one in which Richard, practicing sword fighting for a drama class, swung his sword around and accidentally cut himself badly on the hip. Gail R. Campbell lives in Eugene, Oregon.
- #024
He was Randy Boone's uncle.
- #025
He was a car racing fan.
- #026
He was injured in a car accident in September 1963.
- #027
He was Nick Todd's cousin.
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