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, including his starring role in the television series Have Gun – Will Travel. Early life Boone was born in Los Angeles, California, the middle child of Cecile (née Beckerman) and Kirk E. Boone, a corporate lawyer and fourth great-grandson of Squire Boone, frontiersman Daniel Boone's brother. His mother was Jewish, the daughter of immigrants from Russia. Richard Boone graduated from Hoover High School in Glendale, California. He attended Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, where he was a member of Theta Xi fraternity. He dropped out of Stanford prior to graduation and then worked as an oil rigger, bartender, painter, and writer. In 1941, Boone joined the United States Navy and served on three ships in the Pacific during World War II, seeing combat as an aviation ordnanceman, aircrewman, and tail gunner on Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, and ended his service with the rank of petty officer first class. Acting career Early training In his youth, Boone had attended the San Diego Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad, California, where he was introduced to theatre under the tutelage of Virginia Atkinson. After the war, Boone used the G.I. Bill to study acting at the Actors Studio in New York. Broadway "Serious" and "methodical", Boone debuted on the Broadway theatrical scene in 1947 with Medea, starring Judith Anderson and John Gielgud; it ran for 214 performances. He was then in a production of Macbeth (1948). Boone appeared in a short-lived TV series based on the play The Front Page (1949–50), and on anthology series such as Actors Studio and Suspense. He returned to Broadway in The Man (1950), directed by Martin Ritt, with Dorothy Gish; it ran for 92 performances. Elia Kazan used Boone to feed lines to an actress for a film screen-test done for director Lewis Milestone. Milestone was not impressed with the actress, but he was impressed enough with Boone's voice to summon him to Hollywood, where he was given a seven-year contract with Fox. 20th Century Fox In 1950, Boone made his screen debut as a Marine officer in Milestone's Halls of Montezuma (1951). Fox used him in military parts in Call Me Mister (1951) and The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951). He had bigger roles