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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 of the Hatfield clan in Roseanna McCoy (1949), as Ishmael in Moby Dick (1956), and in the drama Decision Before Dawn (1951). He was married to Italian Academy Award-nominated actress Valentina Cortese, with whom he had one son before their divorce in 1960. Cortese and Basehart also costarred in Robert Wise's The House on Telegraph Hill (1951). Basehart was also noted for his deep, distinctive voice and was prolific as a narrator of many television and movie projects ranging from features to documentaries. In 1980, Basehart narrated the mini-series written by Peter Arnett called Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War that covered Vietnam and its battles from the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945 to the final American embassy evacuation on April 30, 1975. He appeared in the pilot episode of the television series Knight Rider as billionaire Wilton Knight. He is the narrator at the beginning of the show's credits. In 1971, Basehart played "Captain Sligo", a comical Irishman with a pet buffalo who negotiates a flawed but legal cattle purchase and unconventionally courts a widow with two children, played by Salome Jens, in CBS's western series, Gunsmoke, with James Arness. Basehart appeared in an episode of The Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-O, and as Hannibal Applewood, an abusive schoolteacher in Little House on the Prairie in 1976. In 1972, he appeared in the Columbo episode Dagger of the Mind in which he and Honor Blackman played a husband-and-wife theatrical team who were loose parodies of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. In the feature realm, he played a supporting role as a doctor in Rage (1972), a theatrical feature starring and directed by George C. Scott. He made a few TV movies including Sole Survivor (1970) and The Birdmen (1971). Both were based on true stories during World War II. He died at age 70 following a series of strokes. One month before his death, Basehart was an announcer for the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
as Cpl. Denno (archive footage) (uncredited)
as Narrator (Voice)
as Wilton Knight
as Narrator (Self)
as Johnny Hyde
as Vladimir Skrapinov
as Himself
as Narrator
as Manny Benchly
as King Arthur
as Sayer of the Law
as John Cutler
as Elliott Osborn
as Willy Brandt
as Dr. Leonard Chaney
as Dr. Joshua Henderson (1871)
as Gen. Washington
as George Latimer
as Woodrow Wilson
as Carl Brenner
as Schiller
as Dr Douglas Pruitt
as Dr. Roy Caldwell
as Angus Keough
as Nye Buell
as Maj. Barney Caldwell
as Robert Barnes
as The President
as Host / Narrator
as Henry Wirz
as Brig. Gen. Russell Hamner
as Dr. Boeker
as Acteur
as Narrator
as Dr. Gregor Hoffman
as Narrator (voice)
as Narrator
as Narrator (voice)
as Ah Min
as Narrator (voice)
as Adolf Hitler
as Steve Fallon
as Don Benton
as Father Phelan
as Howard Mason
as Martin Lambert
as Eric Reinhardt
as George Rancourt
as Wittkuhn
as Paolo Martelli
as Ivan Karamazov
as Maj. Harry Cargill
as Martino
as Lionel Amblin
as Ishmael
as Reginald 'Reggie' Wilson
as Joe Blake
as Carlo
as Ing. Stefano Manfredi
as Il conte Jacques de Maudy
as Larry Kendall
as Matto
as Doctor Stefano Luprandi
as Joe Halsey
as Joe Hamstringer
as George S. Headley
as Lt. Dick Rennick
as Cpl. Denno
as Alan Spender
as Robert Cosick
as Larry Nelson
as Warren Quimby
as Maximilian Robespierre
as Mounts Hatfield
as Roy Martin / Roy Morgan
as James Caldwell Demarest
as William Williams
