Richard Boone

Richard Allen Boone (June 18, 1917 – January 10, 1981) was an American actor who starred in over 50 films and was notable for his roles in Westerns. He was best known as the star of the TV series Have Gun – Will Travel. [Wikipedia]



Trivia:

Richard refused a salary for his part as General Sam Houston in The Alamo (1960), and John Wayne gave him a Rolls-Royce as well as the buckskin coat he wore in the film as compensation.

He was a 7th generation nephew of Daniel Boone.

Boone turned down the lead role in a television pilot for The Man -- later retitled as Hawaii Five-O.

His hobbies included painting and writing short stories.

During one episode of Boone's early 1970s show, Hec Ramsey, his character reveals he had worked under the name Paladin. <--I need to track this down-->

Boone turned down the role of Pike Bishop in The Wild Bunch (1969).

Quotes:

"Every time you go to the well, it's a little further down. It's sad, like seeing Sugar Ray Robinson after his best days are past. You wish he wouldn't fight any more, and you could just keep your memories." --about leaving the role of Paladin

"You know, Hec Ramsey is a lot like Paladin, only fatter." --on similarities between his series characters

"When I direct a show, I'm pretty arbitrary, if I have a fault, it's that I see an end and go for it with all my energy; and if I'm bugged with people who don't see it or won't go for it, it looks as though I'm riding all over them." --TV Guide magazine interview, 1961

Dillinger's Death

Last week, The Tainted Archive had a great post on whether Billy the Kid lived to a ripe old age. It reminded me of a similar write-up I did for the Axiom Report back in February on John Dillinger, though not as in-depth as Archive. Borrowing heavily from Wikipedia, here's my old post...

After reading Stephen King's The Death of Jack Hamilton (1991, Needful Things), I decided to look on the net for historical accounts of depression era gangsters, Hamilton being a minor player in the infamous John Dillinger gang. I followed a link to a profile of Dillinger and was amazed to learn about the controversy surrounding his death. Apparently, there were a number of people who doubted that the man killed outside Chicago's Biograph Theater in 1934 was even Dillinger. The evidence came from these observations:

--Some people who knew Dillinger and viewed the body didn't recognize him, with even Dillinger's own father claimed, "That's not my boy!"

--It was noted that the eyes of the corpse were brown, but police records described Dillinger's eyes as grey.

--The body showed signs of both a childhood illness that Dillinger never had and a rheumatic heart condition that would have prevented him from playing baseball in prison and enlisting in the Navy.

--Suspiscions were again raised when it was revealed that the pistol on display at FBI Headquarters as the Colt semi-automatic Dillinger had drawn on agents was manufactured five months after his death.

--In 1963, a letter from "John Dillinger," Hollywood, California and a photo of an aged man was received by the The Indianapolis Star but the newspaper gave it little
attention.

I've never been one to put a lot of faith in conspiracy theories, like some others in this case:

--Dillinger's sister, Audrey, positively identified the body by a childhood scar on his leg. Others who viewed the body may not have recognized him due to the plastic surgery he'd had or the death masks that damaged the face.

--Multiple sets of fingerprints taken from the body by the FBI had characteristics the same as Dillinger's.

An interesting piece of trivia that gave rise to many a legend about Dillinger's well endowed nature came from grainy newsprint copies of a photograph of the corpse covered by a sheet with a 'tent' in a rather inauspicious place. Turns out, it was just an arm stiff from rigor mortis.

Maybe some of these answers will be revealed in next year's Dillinger movie directed by one of the best, Michael Mann, and starring Johnny Depp.