Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 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 ...
Known For
Complete Filmography

Los Angeles Plays Itself
2004
as Roy Morgan/Roy Martin in He Walked By Night (archive footage)
From its distinctive neighborhoods to its architectural homes, Los Angeles has been the backdrop to countless movies. In this dazzling work, Andersen ...

The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller
2002
as Cpl. Denno (archive footage) (uncredited)
Samuel Fuller discusses his career as a filmmaker, illustrated by plenty of clips.

Bix: Ain't None of Them Play Like Him Yet
1982
as Self
Through interviews, archival footage, photos and classic tunes, learn about the remarkable career and troubled life of legendary jazz cornetist Bix Be...

Knight Rider: Knight of the Phoenix
1982
as Wilton Knight
After Detective Michael Long is shot and left for dead, he is saved by the eccentric billionaire Wilton Knight. He is given a new face by plastic surg...

Egypt: Quest for Eternity
1982
as Narrator (Self)
Documentary about ancient Egypt, its temples, paintings and art, and how these old treasures are being endangered by modern civilization. Also shown a...

Marilyn: The Untold Story
1980
as Johnny Hyde
The story of the life and times of the legendary Hollywood blonde bombshell, Marilyn Monroe, from her meteoric rise to stardom to her marriages and un...

Being There
1979
as Vladimir Skrapinov
A 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 s...

Land of Celtic Ghosts
1979
as Himself
A collection of Irish legends and sightings, featuring eerie ruins of castles. A moody film, very well narrated by Richard Basehart. Rich in folklore...

The Rebels
1979
as Duke of Kentland
This sequel to "The Bastard" continues the saga of Philip Kent, the illegitimate son of an English nobleman, who has renounced his patrician birthrigh...

Planet Mars
1979
as Narrator

The Great Bank Hoax
1978
as Manny Benchly
When the prominent citizens of a small town discover that the officers of the local bank have been embezzling money from it, they decide to rob the ba...

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
1978
as King Arthur
A modern-day scientist gets teleported to Medieval England in King Arthur's Court! He has to adapt to the current times and tries to make improvement...

The Island of Dr. Moreau
1977
as Sayer of the Law
A 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 turne...

Flood!
1977
as John Cutler
Two helicopter pilots rush aid to a small town devastated by a flood following the collapse of an aging dam.

Stonestreet: Who Killed the Centerfold Model?
1977
as Elliott Osborn
A female private detective goes undercover as a porno actress to find a millionaire's missing daughter.

21 Hours at Munich
1976
as Willy Brandt
A dramatization of the incident in 1972 when Arab terrorists broke into the Olympic compound in Munich and murdered 11 Israeli athletes.

Mansion of the Doomed
1976
as Dr. Leonard Chaney
An insane surgeon finds himself up to his armpits in eyeballs after guilt prompts him to begin removing the eyes of abducted people in hopes of perfor...

Time Travelers
1976
as Dr. Joshua Henderson (1871)
When 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....

Valley Forge
1975
George Washington struggles to hold his army together at a critical point during the Revolutionary War.

Judgment: The Court Martial of Lt. William Calley
1975
as George Latimer
This docudrama follows the court-martial of the title character, the man held responsible for the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.

Maneater
1973
as Carl Brenner
Two couples on a camping trip are hunted by two tigers set upon them by a crazed animal trainer.

The Birdmen
1973
as Schiller
During WWII an American soldier sent to Norway to help with the escape of a scientist working on the atomic bomb for the Germans. Before they can esca...

...And Millions Die!
1973
as Dr Douglas Pruitt
A 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 ...

Rage
1972
as Dr. Roy Caldwell
An accidental nerve gas leak by the military kills not only a rancher's livestock, but also his son. When he tries to hold the military accountable fo...

The Bounty Man
1972
as Angus Keough
Kinkaid is a rugged, hard-driving bounty hunter, determined to find outlaw Billy Riddle. He tracks Billy, takes him captive, and starts the long trek ...

Chato's Land
1972
as Nye Buell
In 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.

Assignment: Munich
1972
as Maj. Barney Caldwell
Undercover agent, using his bar as a front, battles three killers to find a stolen fortune.

The Death of Me Yet
1971
as Robert Barnes
The editor of a small-town newspaper has his past unexpectedly catch up with him: he finds out that a Soviet agent who knew him when he was a spy has ...

City Beneath the Sea
1971
as The President
A group of 21st-century colonists inhabit an underwater city called Pacifica. Originally intended as a purely scientific installation, the U. S. gover...
They've Killed President Lincoln!
1971
as Host / Narrator
The events surrounding the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, dramatized using simulated documentary footage.

The Andersonville Trial
1970
as Henry Wirz
A dramatization of the 1865 war-crimes trial of Henry Wirz, commandant of the notorious Confederate POW camp at Andersonville, Georgia.

Sole Survivor
1970
as Brig. Gen. Russell Hamner
In 1960, the ruins of an American bomber were found in the Libyan desert, but the remains of the crew were never located. In Guerdon Trueblood's telep...

Hans Brinker
1969
as Dr. Boeker
Melodrama on ice

Love Is a Funny Thing
1969
as Acteur
A 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.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
1968
as Narrator
This documentary showcases Hitler's strategy for conquering hearts and minds by exploiting people's capacity to hate, something as relevant in our tim...

Jacqueline Susann and the Valley of the Dolls
1967
Documentary about novelist Jacqueline Susann and her novel "Valley of the Dolls."

The Satan Bug
1965
as Dr. Gregor Hoffman
A 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 b...

Let My People Go: The Story of Israel
1965
as Narrator (voice)
Survey of Zionist history: Theodor Herzl's idea of creating a Jewish state; the return to Palestine; Allenby entering Jerusalem; Tel Aviv, 1933; the g...

Trial at Nuremberg
1964
as Narrator
This 1964 film shows the capture of and preparation for the prosecution of the principal defendants at the International Military Tribunal at Nurember...

Four Days In November
1964
as Narrator (voice)
1964 American documentary film about the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Kings of the Sun
1963
as Ah Min
In order to flee from powerful enemies, young Mayan king Balam leads his people north across the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of what will become the U...
The Yanks Are Coming
1963
as Narrator (voice)
The Yanks Are Coming is a 1963 documentary film produced by Marshall Flaum and narrated by Richard Basehart. It was nominated for an Academy Award for...

Hitler
1962
as Adolf Hitler
Richard Basehart stars as one of the most influential and one of the most reviled men in history in this probing psychological study of a man who near...

The Savage Guns
1961
as Steve Fallon
This 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 C...

Visa to Canton
1960
as Don Benton
A former World War II pilot, now the owner of a travel agency in Hong Kong, gets involved in espionage trying to help a Chinese woman locate her son.

For the Love of Mike
1960
as Father Phelan
An orphan trains a racehorse so he can win the money to build a new church.

Portrait in Black
1960
as Howard Mason
A pair of lovers plot to kill the woman's rich husband.

Five Branded Women
1960
as Eric Reinhardt
Five Yugoslav women who consorted with the German occupiers are publicly humiliated and banished by the Yugoslav partisans but they take up arms to fe...

The Ambitious One
1959
as George Rancourt
This Yves Allegret film is set in French Polynesia and stars Edmond O'Brien, Richard Basehart, Andrea Parisy, Nicole Berger and Reg Lye. Basehart is t...
Jons und Erdme
1959
as Wittkuhn
Adaptation of Hermann Sudermann's novel about the troubled relationship between the strong willed Erdme and her irascible husband Jons in the Lithunia...

Love and Troubles
1958
as Paolo Martelli
Three vignettes about couples trying to get together and the problems that continue to keep them apart.

The Brothers Karamazov
1958
as Ivan Karamazov
Ryevsk, Russia, 1870. Tensions abound in the Karamazov family. Fyodor is a wealthy libertine who holds his purse strings tightly. His four grown sons ...

Time Limit
1957
as Maj. Harry Cargill
Military investigator Colonel Edwards is assigned a case involving Major Cargill, a Korean War POW who is accused of treason. Although Cargill admits ...

Miracles of Thursday
1957
as Martino
In Fontecilla, a Spanish village in decline, the mayor and other illustrious citizens hatch a crazy plan to revitalize tourism.

Moby Dick
1956
as Ishmael
In 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 s...

The Intimate Stranger
1956
as Reginald 'Reggie' Wilson
Film 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...

The Extra Day
1956
as Joe Blake
Director William Fairchild's 1956 British comedy takes a peek into the private lives of various performers employed as extras in a new film that's cur...

The Swindle
1955
as Carlo
Aging small-time conman Augusto works with two younger men: Roberto, who desires to become the Italian Johnny Ray, and Carlo, nicknamed Picasso. Throu...

The Golden Vein
1955
as Ing. Stefano Manfredi
Jealous of his widowed mother's new lover, a boy does everything to separate them. Then, after he realizes their profound feelings for each other, he ...

Cartouche
1955
as Il conte Jacques de Maudy
The son of an ailing nobleman returns to France to clear his name and prove where the true guilt lies.

Canyon Crossroads
1955
as Larry Kendall
A mining engineer, who is shunned by his peers for his unorthodox beliefs concerning the whereabouts of large uranium deposits, joins forces with a gi...

La Strada
1954
as Il 'Matto'
When Gelsomina, a naïve young woman, is purchased from her impoverished mother by brutish circus strongman Zampanò to be his wife and partner, she loy...

Jailbirds
1954
as Doctor Stefano Luprandi
Three jailbirds - a surgeon, a robber and a wrongly convicted man must adjust to their lives once released from prison.

The Good Die Young
1954
as Joe Halsey
An amoral, psychotic playboy incites three men who are down on their luck to commit a mail van robbery, which goes badly wrong.

The Stranger's Hand
1954
as Joe Hamstringer
Eight-year-old Roger Court is in Venice expecting to reunite with his father, British diplomat Major Court (Trevor Howard), whom he hasn't seen in thr...

Titanic
1953
as George S. Headley
Unhappily married, Julia Sturges decides to go to America with her two children on the Titanic. Her husband, Richard also arranges passage on the luxu...

Decision Before Dawn
1951
as Lt. Dick Rennick
WWII is entering its last phase: Germany is in ruins, but does not yield. The US army lacks crucial knowledge about the German units operating on the ...

Fixed Bayonets!
1951
as Cpl. Denno
The story of a platoon during the Korean War. One by one, Corporal Denno's superiors are killed until it comes to the point where he must try to take ...

The House on Telegraph Hill
1951
as Alan Spender
Concentration camp survivor Victoria Kowelska finds herself involved in mystery, greed, and murder when she assumes the identity of a dead friend in o...

Fourteen Hours
1951
as Robert Cosick
A 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 ...

Outside the Wall
1950
as Larry Nelson
Larry Nelson, paroled from prison after serving nearly half of his thirty-year sentence, is determined to not fall into the clutches of the law again,...

Tension
1949
as Warren Quimby
Warren Quimby manages a drugstore while trying to keep his volatile wife, Claire, happy. However, when Claire leaves him for a liquor store salesman, ...

Reign of Terror
1949
as Maximilian Robespierre
The French Revolution, 1794. The Marquis de Lafayette asks Charles D'Aubigny to infiltrate the Jacobin Party to overthrow Maximilian Robespierre, who,...

Roseanna McCoy
1949
as Mounts Hatfield
It's the Hatfields vs. the McCoys in this 1949 film, with Farley Granger and Joan Evans as the hillbilly Romeo and Juliet whose forbidden romance reki...

He Walked by Night
1949
as Roy Martin / Roy Morgan
Roy 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...

Cry Wolf
1947
as James Caldwell Demarest
A woman uncovers deadly secrets when she visits her late husband's family.

Repeat Performance
1947
as William Williams
On 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 th...