Richard Bakalyan
| Richard Bakalyan | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 29, 1931 Watertown, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | February 27, 2015 (aged 84) Elmira, New York, U.S. |
| Cause of death | cerebral hemorrhage |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1954–2008 |
| Spouse(s) | Betty Lee Bauman (1952–1967) (her death) |
Richard Bakalyan (January 29, 1931 – February 27, 2015) was an Armenian American character actor who started his career playing juvenile delinquents in his first several films.
Born Richard Bakalyan on January 29, 1931 in Watertown, Massachusetts, he was the son of Armenian-born William Nishan Bakalyan and Canadian (from Nova Scotia) Elsie Florence (née Fancy) Bakalyan.
Bakalyan served in the United States Air Force during the Korean War.
Balkayan some experience as a juvenile delinquent, having served a year's probation at age 15.
Early in his career he was cast as thugs, outlaws, and in military action films, like The Delinquents (1957), The Bonnie Parker Story (1958), and Up Periscope (1959). During the filming of 1958's juvenile-gang drama "The Cool and the Crazy", he and fellow actor Dick Jones were arrested for vagrancy for real on-location, in Kansas City. They were standing on the corner between takes in "JD" outfits and the police thought that they were actual gang members. It took several hours for the film crew to explain to the police what was going on, and had them released from jail.
By the mid-1960s, as he grew out of these roles, he became something of a comic heavy, often cast years later in family Disney films, though still known in dramas. Some of his Disney projects included Never a Dull Moment (1968), The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), The Strongest Man in the World (1975), Return from Witch Mountain (1978), and voice-efforts in The Fox and the Hound (1981), as 'Dinky' the finch bird.
Bakalyan had an uncredited role in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) as the good thief on the cross. He appeared in several of Frank Sinatra's movies during the 1960s, such as Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), None but the Brave (1965), and Von Ryan's Express (1965), becoming lifelong friends with the Sinatra family. While filming Pressure Point in 1962, he met co-star Bobby Darin, who later became one of Bakalyan's closest friends. It's reported Bakalyan was one of the last friends to see Darin, before his early death from heart disease, in 1973.
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