Richard Harrison was born on May 26, 1936 in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1953, at the young age of 17 he decided to leave Utah and move to Los Angeles on his own, so he did just that. After arriving in LA, he quickly got hired to work for the Vic Tanny and Bert Goodrich gyms. While working there he was spotted by a physique photographer who asked him to do photoshoots for him that would inspire other young men to workout and have a physique like his, and he agreed, and for a brief time he became a physique model while also working at the gyms.
Many people who worked in the film industry would go workout at the gyms he worked at, and took notice of the attractive young man. He was told he should get into film acting, because he had the looks for it (a young, fit, handsome, chiseled blond with an amazing tan). This led him to study acting. Casting directors who went to the gym began giving him work.
Harrison started off as a bit player and background extra in films. His first job was in 1957 as a background player and his first speaking role was in 1958’s Kronos, starring Kim Novak. He did these small roles throughout the late 50s into 1960. He also did a few tv appearances and appeared in a play in Santa Monica.
In 1961 he met Loretta Nicholson, daughter of big-time producer and co-owner/founder of AIP studios James H. Nicholson, and they were married within 6 months of meeting. They went on to have 3 children together. He rushed her into marriage assuming it would help his career but it didn’t.
Harrison began growing tired of not getting good role offers in Hollywood so when he was offered a lead role for a European film, he took it. This led him to settle in Italy and become a movie star in Italy (appearing in sword and sandal films, then Eurospy films and Spaghetti Westerns) for over 2 decades. He originally signed a 3 picture deal that would last 20 years because of how popular he became over there. Because of his formal acting training while in Hollywood, he was viewed as a “real” actor compared to his counterparts like Brad Harris and Steve Reeves, who also became movie stars in Europe after failing in the states.
He starred in tons of big films in Italy, but in the mid- 70s his career began to slow down as the Spaghetti Western genre began dying. This led him to start making low-budget movies filmed all over the world, from Egypt to Turkey to Hong Kong. He still made some Italian films in that time but the roles weren’t coming like they used to and he was getting offered terrible B-movies. By the early 80s his career in Europe was dead, and he found work in Asia.
During the 80s he worked in mostly B-movie action films in the Philippines and Hong Kong. In the Philippines he starred in “ULTRA-LOW Budget” films, classified as Z-movies. He also began writing screenplays for Filipino films using a pseudonym. He claimed he wrote the entire screenplays in one sitting overnight. The poor quality of the films he was starring in hurt his reputation big time, especially in Italy, where he was once a big star. Harrison speaks mostly negatively about this time period, particularly certain people he had to work with. After being done with making Filipino films, he began making films in Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong, he filmed a small amount of low-budget ninja movies with filmmaker Godfrey Ho, however Ho re-edited his scenes from those few films into new scenes for new films in a cut-and-paste style filmmaking, adding Harrison to 24 different movies he never agreed to star in. Harrison became so disgusted he moved back to the USA.
In the USA he did a few films, but mostly stepped back as an actor and also did some producing and writing. He also did a few more European films, but filmed in the states. By 2000 he retired. In the 90s he ran for mayors office in Palm Springs and lost both times.
Loretta divorced him later (year is unknown) and in 1978 he married his second wife. They are still together.
