Here’s What Happened to Richard Long, Star of ‘The Big Valley’ and ‘Nanny and the Professor’

He made his big-screen debut in 1946’s Tomorrow is Forever. His on-screen parents were played by Claudette Colbert and Orson Welles, the latter of whom was so impressed with him that he cast Richard in that same year’s The Stranger (which Welles directed). Also that same year he was seen alongside Olivia de Havilland and Lew Ayres in The Dark Mirror.

Richard was alongside Claudette again in 1947’s The Egg and I, which also starred Fred MacMurray. Then there was the Civil War-set Western Tap Roots (1948), the William Bendix comedy The Life of Riley (1949), Burt Lancaster’s Criss Cross (1949), the Western Kansas Raiders (1950), three entries in the Ma and Pa Kettle series (1949’s Ma and Pa Kettle, 1950’s Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town, 1951’s Ma and Pa Kettle on the Farm); and 1951’s Air Cadet.

No sooner had Richard shot Air Cadet than he found himself drafted into the U.S. Army to fight in the Korean War. Two years later, in 1952, he was honorably discharged. Reported The Ithaca Journal in 1953, “During his two-year stretch he rose to the rank of private first class. He performed in Special Services in Tokyo as a disc jockey and radio actor for programs beamed to the troops. Did his movies follow him around? ‘Yes,’ he said, “and I always got a peculiar reaction from the other soldiers. They’d say, ‘Hey, Long, I saw you in the movie last night.’ And that’s all they’d say. No comment or anything.’”

Between 1952’s Back at the Front and 1964’s Make Like a Thief, Richard starred in a dozen films, but somehow he never quite met the promise of his early career in terms of stardom. “When I was under contract to Universal-International,” he reflected to the Freeport Journal-Standard in 1959, “I couldn’t seem to get any kind of role but the boy next door or Madison Avenue types.” He added to the Star-Gazette in 1966, “I’ve never been a big star, but I’m grateful that I’ve been acting for 22 years and I’ve always made good money without having the awesome responsibility of stardom. Really, I had the longest awkward period in show business, because I looked so young for so long. I spent 10 years at one studio, starting when I was 17. All I could play in those 10 years were brother roles and son roles, because I was too young for mature parts.”

Off screen, his life during this period was very difficult and challenging. In 1952, the San Francisco Examiner reported that he would be marrying a woman named Mary Briggs, formerly of Northern California and then of San Angelo, Texas, where the wedding was supposed to take place. The strange thing was that there wasn’t another mention of it. However, next we heard Richard was romantically involved with actress Suzan Ball (second cousin to Lucille Ball, incidentally).

They planned on getting married, despite the fact that in 1953 doctors diagnosed Suzan with cancer after the discovery of tumors in her legs. Looking back at the situation, in 1955 the New York Daily News reported, “When Suzan Ball lost her right leg to cancer early last year, her courage touched the hearts of all who learned of her tragic fate. Three months later, on April 11, 1954, Suzan married actor Richard Long and walked down the aisle, as she had vowed she would, on an artificial limb.”  Celebrity guests at their wedding included Jeff Chandler, Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh and David Janssen.

Things seemed hopeful for the newly-married couple, until the cancer came raging back, this time in her lungs. Now while this may have been normal back then, from a 2020 perspective it seems like something you could never do — The Sacramento Bee stated on August 6, 1955, “It was hoped the amputation would cure her of cancer. But a year ago doctors told her husband, Long, that the illness had recurred. He kept the sad news from Suzan and they went ahead with a night club engagement. ‘It was what Suzan wanted to do,’ Long said. He managed to keep her unaware of her true condition until about three months ago. ‘Sure she was disheartened,’ said Long, ‘but she came through it beautifully. Of course, you never really know how you will take it until it happens to you, but I know I could never take it as beautifully as she has.’”

Speaking to The San Bernardino County Sun, Richard elaborated, “It’s a strange disease. It can be going on in your body without you knowing it. Unless it touches a nerve, there is no pain or discomfort. When Suzan did have some trouble, we managed to camouflage the symptoms as something else. The doctors thought it would be better that way in order to keep up her mental attitude. She was in and out of Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Hollywood. Finally, we couldn’t keep the news from her.”

In 1959, Richard made the shift to television, starring in the private detective series Bourbon Street Beat as Rex Randolph alongside Andrew Duggan as Cal Calhoun. The show ran for one season of 39 episodes and when it was canceled, the studio behind the show, Warner Bros, shifted the actor and his character over to another detective series, 77 Sunset Strip. There he co-starred with Efram Zimbalist, Jr. as Stuart Bailey. It was the first time that a television character went from one series regular to another.

A bit surprising was the seeming lack of enthusiasm Richard had while starring on the show. “Show me an actor who expresses increasing enthusiasm for his series,” he told the Star-Gazette of Elmira, New York in 1962, “and I’ll show you a man who isn’t an actor. I hope I’ve had it with series. Not only the stars, but the featured players find the sameness of their roles irritating after a time. The stories are usually contrived and lacking vitality. If you have two good stories out of 39, you consider yourself lucky. Perhaps what’s wrong with most series, at least those I’ve been in, is that much emphasis seems to be placed on sympathetic glamor, cliché situations and platitudinous dialogue without much concern for true human emotions that strike a responsive chord in the hearts of viewers. I can’t say I positively won’t star in a series again. There are already signs of increasing maturity in TV series with thoughtfully written scripts and penetrating characterizations. Meanwhile, I’m content with playing diverse roles. At least I’m breaking a fresh, sweet smell of freedom one wouldn’t understand unless he was trapped in a series.”

Over the years, Richard guest-starred in a number of shows, including Wagon Train, Have Gun, Will Travel; Lawman, four episodes of Maverick, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone (“Person or Persons Unknown,” “Number 12 Looks Just Like You”). In 1965, he found himself back in series television with the Western The Big Valley, set in the mid to late 1800s on the fictional Barkley Ranch in Stockton, California and following the lives of one of the areas wealthiest and largest ranch owning families. Barbara Stanwyck is matriarch Victoria Barkley. Joining her are Richard as eldest son Jarrod Thomas Barkley, an attorney; Peter Breck is the hot-tempered youngest son, Nicholas “Nick” Jonathan Barkley; a pre-Dynasty Linda Evans as daughter Audra Barkley; and Lee Majors, before he went all bionic on us as Heath Barkley, the illegitimate son of Victoria’s late husband. The Big Valley ran on ABC until 1969, with four seasons and 112 episodes.

In 1966, it seems that Richard was expressing a different sort of feeling for TV as a medium. “Television has forced Hollywood into making mature movies,” he said, “and even if we compromise with the clock in television, it’s fantastic to me that the level of television is as high as it is. Four years as a freelance actor was the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had. I had a chance to play all kinds of roles that helped me grow as an actor. You can spend a whole year just making pilots, but I thought The Big Valley had everything if it could crystalize into a style. I think we’re in that stage of crystalizing now.”

He added to The Valley Times of North Hollywood, “Part of the attraction of the series is that we are as a family not always right. We just do the best we can under the circumstances. No superheroes, just human beings. And that’s what people identify with.”

Obviously he had embraced television by this point, because it wasn’t long after the end of The Big Valley that he signed to co-star with Juliet Mills in Nanny and the Professor, which ran from 1970 to 1971. Juliet’s character, Phoebe Figalilly (she prefers to be called “Nanny”) arrives at the home of Richard’s Professor Harold Everett, a widower, to take care of his three kids. Like the character of Mary Poppins, there’s something different (some would say magical) about Nanny.

In a previous article on the cast of Nanny, TV historian Ed Robertson reflected to us, “It was a nice role for him. As I understand it, it got to show a lot more of his real-life personality in that he was very dry and droll and very, very funny off camera — which you didn’t get in what you saw of him from other shows like 77 Sunset Strip. On top of that, he and Juliet Mills had a really nice chemistry to the extent you got a sense of a romance between the two of them. It was not overt; it was very subtle and perhaps had the show gone beyond two-and-a-half-years, it was something that would have been explored a little more overtly.”

As Juliet Mills told us in a separate interview, she felt that that was a squandered potential. “They made a mistake in not allowing a romance; they were so prudish in those days,” she said. “If there was a scene where I came out of my bedroom in the night, I had to have a nightgown up to my neck and down to the ground. I could only offer him a cup of tea after work, and not a bourbon or something. Towards the end of the show, people were constantly saying, ‘When are you and the Professor going to get together? You’re so great together.’ I believe that’s really another reason the show ended when it did, because people expected Nanny and the Professor to start having a little romance. Anything that was there was never in the script, it was between Richard and me. It was also obvious that they really liked each other and had a lot in common as far as humor and everything.”

In 1973, Richard co-starred with Julie Harris in the short-lived series Thicker Than Water, based on a British TV series called Nearest and Dearest. It was his first show taped in front of a studio audience. He explained to The Post-Star of Glen Falls, New York, “Ernie Paine, the character I play, is a ne’er do-well with no affinity for responsibility. Julie Harris and I star as bickering sister and brother with clashingly opposing lifestyles. We’re forced to live at home together and run our ailing dad’s pickle factory in order to qualify for our inheritance. I’m delighted to be working with Julie. She had guested on one of The Big Valley episodes and she’s a great performer with a meticulous sense of timing that is so all-important in comedy.”

To the Progress Bulletin of Pomona, California he added, “I don’t know yet whether or not we have a hit in this series, but we certainly are having a good time. I’m delighted. I like the idea of working with tape, especially for comedy. A live audience is better for comedy performances and I’m sure any actor doing comedy would prefer it to film when it is physically possible. It’s been a long time since I’ve worked before a live audience, about three years and that was a Colorado Springs annual rodeo audience. I love being back.” Unfortunately, Thicker Than Water only lasted nine episodes. From there, Richard would star in the 1974 TV movies The Girl Who Came Gift-Wrapped and Death Cruise.

In an exclusive interview, Karen Valentine, his co-star in The Girl Who Came Gift-Wrapped, shares, “Richard Long had been acting almost as long as I’d been living when I had the pleasure of working with him. He was not only a lovely actor he was also very classy, a gentleman, easy going, quite handsome, and totally professional. I really enjoyed working with him. Nanny and the Professor was filmed on the 20th Century lot on a stage near the Room 222 stage. So our paths crossed occasionally. I was a huge Big Valley fan and had many questions about him and his career, not to mention Barbara Stanwyck. He was extremely patient and generous to indulge me. I liked him very much. It was a shock that he died so young.”

Richard’s personal life over the years was a veritable roller coaster, particularly his volatile second marriage to actress/model Mara Corday. Two years after the death of first wife Suzan Ball in 1955, the two of them wed and things ran hot and cold between them for years. “Richard couldn’t stand to have me working in the business after we married in 1957,” Mara offered The Times Record of Troy, New York in explanation. “I remember one time the producer of The Big Valley suggested I do a guest role in that series with Richard, but he absolutely refused to allow it. I was tremendously jealous of him and he was terrible possessive of me.” 

As reported by westernclippings.com, she added, “Richard Long was an enigma. I divorced him 10 times the first year of our marriage, getting a lawyer and everything …  And 13 times the second year. He’d plead, literally on his hands and knees, ‘Please forgive me, I don’t know why I did it, give me another chance.’ I loved him and I am still in love with him — 22 years after his death.”

Some insight into that relationship — and Richard’s own health issues — came to light in a 1961 item from the Ventura County Star-Free Press: “Richard Long is in a hospital being treated for a heart ailment. Long is being sued for divorce by actress Mara Corday. The case was slated to come up in Burbank today. Miss Corday expresses sympathy over Long’s illness, but indicated there would be no reconciliation.” In April of that year, the Redlands Daily Flats noted that “actor Richard Long was out of jail today, because his wife refused to sign a complaint against him. Long, 33, was arrested Friday after his actress-wife Mara Corday told police he beat and kicked her and tried to strangle her. She said he had been drinking.”

When Richard was younger, he contracted pneumonia, which had the effect of weakening his heart and causing him to suffer a heart attack in the 1950s. In the years to come, he refused to cut down on smoking and drinking — both of which he did in excess. In 1974 he suffered another heart attack — apparently there had been several before that — which resulted in a month-long stay at the Tarzana Medical Center in Los Angeles. He ended up dying on December 21, just four days after he turned 47.

In reflecting on his career, Richard once commented, “Doing a series is like taking your money to Las Vegas. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. You pick something you believe in, do the best you can and see what happens. Who knows what the public will go for?” He also had a sense of irony about the duration of fame and joked with Mara, “You know, I’ll probably die on a weekend and nobody will know. Who reads papers on weekends?”

‘Tomorrow is Forever’ (1946)

‘The Stranger’ (1946)

‘The Dark Mirror’ (1946)

‘The Egg and I’ (1947)

‘Tap Roots’ (1948)

‘The Life of Riley’ (1949)

‘Criss Cross’ (1948)

‘Ma and Pa Kettle’ (1949)

‘Kansas Raiders’ (1950)

‘Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town’ (1950)

‘Air Cadet’ (1951)

‘Ma and Pa Kettle Back on the Farm’ (1951)

‘Back at the Front’ (1952)

‘All I Desire’ (1953)

‘All American’ (1953)

‘Saskatchewan’ (1954)

‘Playgirl’ (1954)

‘Cult of the Cobra’ (1955)

‘He Laughed Last’ (1956)

‘Fury at Gunsight Pass’ (1956)

‘House on Haunted Hill’ (1958)

‘Tokyo After Dark’ (1959)

‘Follow the Boys’ (1963)

‘Make Like a Thief’ (1964)