Richard Peabody (April 6, 1925 – December 27, 1999) was an American actor best known for his role as six-foot-six
Pfc. Littlejohn on the 1960s series ''
Combat!''. Peabody worked in television, movies, radio, and print. He was tall and typecast himself as a
western villain.
Biography
Peabody was a
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
Navy veteran, and had an early career in radio commercial production.
He anchored a TV news broadcast, hosted a radio talk show, wrote commercials and, in later years, wrote "Peabody's Place", a weekly newspaper column for the Mountain Democrat in
Placerville, California
Placerville (, ; ''placer'', Spanish for "sand deposit", representing the placer mining that was predominant in the town's development, and ''ville'', French for "town") is a city in and the county seat of El Dorado County, California, United S ...
.
He was in the movies ''
Support Your Local Sheriff!'' and ''
The Good Guys and the Bad Guys'' in 1969; both films were directed by
Burt Kennedy
Burton Raphael Kennedy (September 3, 1922 – February 15, 2001) was an American screenwriter and film director, director known mainly for directing Westerns. Budd Boetticher called him "the best Western writer ever."
Biography
Kennedy was b ...
who worked on ''Combat!''. He also appeared in ''Your Money or Your Wife'' in 1972.
His main TV credit was all five seasons of ''Combat!''. He was also in various episodes of Cannon, ''
Gunsmoke
''Gunsmoke'' is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman Macdonnell and writer John Meston. It centered on Dodge City, Kansas, in the 1870s, during the settlement of the American West. The central charact ...
'', ''
Bonanza
''Bonanza'' is an American Western television series that ran on NBC from September 12, 1959, to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 431 episodes, ''Bonanza'' is NBC's longest-running Western, the second-longest-running Western series on ...
'', and ''
Daniel Boone
Daniel Boone (, 1734September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyo ...
''.
Personal life
His wife Tina, a former model, wrote "Young Sarge", a song Dick Peabody recorded in 1965.
He died of
prostate cancer
Prostate cancer is the neoplasm, uncontrolled growth of cells in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system below the bladder. Abnormal growth of the prostate tissue is usually detected through Screening (medicine), screening tests, ...
at the age of 74.
Filmography
See also
*
Vic Morrow
*
Rick Jason
References
External links
*
1925 births
1999 deaths
American male television actors
American male film actors
Deaths from prostate cancer in California
20th-century American male actors
United States Navy personnel of World War II
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