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Richard Crenna

Richard Crenna built a career that couldn't be contained to one medium or one type of role. Born in Los Angeles on November 30, 1926, he began acting on radio as a child, appearing on the Boy Scout Jamboree before playing Walter “Bronco” Thompson on The Great Gildersleeve. He later originated the awkward Walter Denton on Our Miss Brooks and stayed with the comedy when it moved to television in 1952. That transition helped establish a career defined by range. After joining The Real McCoys as Luke McCoy, Crenna also became one of the series’ directors. He went on to direct episodes of The Andy Griffith Show while continuing to work in front of the camera. His performance as California state senator James Slattery in Slattery’s People brought two Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe nomination in 1965. On film, Crenna could suggest authority without making it feel simple. He played an American gunboat captain opposite Steve McQueen in The Sand Pebbles, co-starred with Audrey Hepburn in the thriller Wait Until Dark and appeared in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Un Flic. Westerns remained part of his 1970s work, while the miniseries Centennial gave him the darker role of Colonel Frank Skimmerhorn. Later audiences saw him as Kathleen Turner’s doomed husband in Body Heat and as Colonel Sam Trautman, John Rambo’s former commanding officer, in the first three Rambo films. Trautman became Crenna’s best-known role, built around a steady, commanding presence that suited the scale of the series. He was also willing to turn that image inside out, spoofing the character in Hot Shots! Television remained equally important. Crenna won an Emmy for the title role in the 1985 television film The Rape of Richard Beck and starred as detective Frank Janek across seven made-for-television films. In 2001, he portrayed Ronald Reagan in The Day Reagan Was Shot. Across radio, television and film, as both performer and director, Crenna’s career showed an unusual ability to keep changing shape without losing its centre.