Richard Devon

Richard Devon (born Richard Gibson Ferraiole, December 11, 1926 – February 26, 2010) was an American character actor and voice actor who between the late 1940s and 1991 performed in hundreds of roles on stage, radio, television, and in feature films.

Richard Devon
Devon as mob boss Carmine Ricca in Magnum Force, 1973
Born	Richard Gibson Ferraiole December 11, 1926 Glendale, California, U.S.
Died	February 26, 2010 (aged 83) Mill Valley, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1949-1988
Spouse(s)	Patricia A. Riopelle (1959-his death)[1]

Early life

Richard was born in Glendale, California in 1926, the only son of four children of Florence H. (née Glass) and Luca Ferraiole.[2][3] His father, a native of Italy, immigrated to the United States in 1901 and lived in Pennsylvania before moving to California, where by 1930 he was employed as a waiter in a Los Angeles cafe.[3][4] To supplement his family's modest income, Richard later worked part-time as a stable boy and then as a riding instructor at an equestrian "academy" in Griffith Park.[5] That early experience with horses would prove useful in his future acting career, especially for his roles in Western films and television series. Following his graduation from high school, Richard had a series of other jobs, including work as a mail carrier at Monogram Pictures, a laborer at a plant nursery, a "mechanic's helper", and as a doorman at the Hollywood Palladium.[5]

Career

In the 1950s Devon began performing as a character actor in many Four Star Television series, although his work was not limited to a single production company or network. He appears, for example, as Ed Pike in the 1959 episode "Yellow Fever" of the Western series Colt .45, which was produced by Warner Bros. and originally broadcast by ABC.[6]

Devon's lengthy television credits include Richard Diamond, Private Detective (three episodes), The Rifleman, Tales of Wells Fargo, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Johnny Ringo (in the episode "The Posse"), Space Patrol, Trackdown starring Robert Culp (three episodes, including the pilot episode of that series, "Badge of Honor," which aired initially on Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre), The Tall Man, Gunsmoke (in the episodes "Ex-Con" and "The Quest for Asa Janin"), The Rebel, The Virginian (as Haskell in the 1970 episode "You Can Lead a Horse to Water) and its spin-off, Bonanza (four episodes from 1960-1967: "The Avenger", "The Trail Gang", "The Scapegoat" and "A Bride for Buford"), Laredo, Daniel Boone, The Monkees, Lassie, The Twilight Zone episode "Dead Man's Shoes" in 1962, three episodes of Perry Mason from 1964–1966, and Mission: Impossible. Devon had a regular role as well as on the CBS series Yancy Derringer, performing the part of Jody Barker, a pickpocket and sometime cohort of the lead character played by Jock Mahoney.[7] He also played the role of Cole Striker, a crook, in the 1963 episode "Incident of the Buryin' Man" on CBS's Rawhide.

He provided the voice of Batman on episodes of the radio version of The Adventures of Superman.[5]

Devon's big screen career consists of at least two dozen feature films. Some of those productions are The Undead, War of the Satellites, The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze, The Comancheros, and the Battle of Blood Island.[8]

Personal life and death

In December 1959 Devon married Patricia A. Riopelle.[1] They remained together for over 50 years, until Devon died of vascular disease in Mill Valley, California in 2010.[4]

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1952	Scorching Fury	Kirk Flamer
1955	The Prodigal	Risafe
1957	The Undead	Satan
1957	The Buckskin Lady	townsman	uncredited
1957	3:10 to Yuma	Wade henchman	uncredited
1957	Escape from San Quentin	Roy Gruber
1957	Teenage Doll	Det. Dunston
1957	Blood of Dracula	Det. Sgt. Stewart
1957	The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent	Stark
1958	Machine-Gun Kelly	Apple
1958	War of the Satellites	Dr. Pol Van Ponder
1958	Badman's Country	Harvey Logan
1958	The Badlanders	prison guard	uncredited
1958	Money, Women and Guns	Setting Sun
1959	Gunfighters of Abilene	Marty Ruger
1960	Battle of Blood Island	Moe
1961	The Comancheros	Esteban
1962	Kid Galahad	Marvin
1963	Cattle King	VInce Bodine
1963	The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze	Maharajah
1966	The Silencers	Domino
1968	Three Guns for Texas	Max
1973	Magnum Force	Carmine Ricca
1974	Planet of the Apes	Zandar
1988	The Seventh Sign	second cardinal

References and notes

1. "California Marriage Index", December 13, 1959. Office of Vital Statistics, Department of Health Services, Sacramento. FamilySearch, L1YK-Q2L.
2. "California Birth Index, 1905-1995", Richard Gibson Ferraiole, December 11, 1926, Los Angeles, California. Vital Statistics, Department of Health Services, Sacramento.
3. "The Fifteenth Census of the United States Census: 1930", digital image of original enumeration page, Los Angeles, California, April 16, 1930. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C. FamilySearch digital records.
4. Lentz, Harris M. III (2011). Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 2010. McFarland. p. 104. ISBN 9780786486496. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
5. Magers, Boyd. "Characters and Heavies: Richard Devon", Western Clippings, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Retrieved April 5, 2019.
6. "Colt .45". The Classic TV Archive (ctva.biz). Retrieved December 22, 2012.
7. Rich, Michael (2018). "Yancy Derringer", Fifties Web, RichWeb. Retrieved April 14, 2019.
8. "Richard Devon", filmography, American Film Institute (AFI), Los Angeles, California. Retrieved April 14, 2019.

External links

• Richard Devon at IMDb
• Richard Devon at Find a Grave
• Richard Devon at Rifleman fansite