Richard William Farnsworth (September 1, 1920 – October 6, 2000) was an American actor and stuntman. He is best known for his performances in Comes a Horseman (1978), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for the Best Supporting Actor, The Grey Fox (1982), for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama, Anne of Green Gables (1985), Misery (1990), and The Straight Story (1999), for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Early life
Farnsworth was born on September 1, 1920, in Los Angeles, California, to a housewife mother and an engineer father. He was raised during the Great Depression. When he was seven, Farnsworth’s father died. He then lived with his aunt, mother, and two sisters in downtown Los Angeles.[citation needed]
Career
Stunt work
In 1937, age 16, Farnsworth was working as a stable hand at a polo field in Los Angeles for $6 a week when he was offered employment with better pay as a stuntman. He rode horses in films such as The Adventures of Marco Polo featuring Gary Cooper and performed horse-riding stunts in films including A Day at the Races (1937) and Gunga Din (1939). Farnsworth was employed on the set of Spartacus (1960) for 11 months in which he drove a chariot.[citation needed]
Acting
From stunt work, Farnsworth gradually moved into acting in Western movies. He made uncredited appearances in numerous films, including Gone with the Wind (1939), Red River (1948), The Wild One (1953), and The Ten Commandments (1956). In 1960, Farnsworth (credited as Dick Farnsworth) appeared as a Gault ranch hand in the TV Western Laramie in the episode titled “Street of Hate”.
Farnsworth received his first acting credit in 1963 and went on to act in Western films and television shows. He had a role in Roots (1977). In 1992, he co-starred with Wilford Brimley in The Boys of Twilight. His breakthrough came when he played stagecoach robber Bill Miner in the 1982 Canadian film The Grey Fox. He appeared as a baseball coach in The Natural (1984). In 1985, he was the brother to Marilla and father figure to Anne in Anne of Green Gables. Other prominent roles include wealthy and ruthless oil man in The Two Jakes (1990) and the suspicious sheriff in the film version of Stephen King’s Misery (1990).
Farnsworth became well known in the Pacific Northwest as the groundskeeper who saw the mythical “Artesians” in the 1980s Olympia Beer advertising campaign.[citation needed]
Personal life and death
Farnsworth had a long marriage and had two children. After becoming a widower, he lived on a ranch in Lincoln, New Mexico.[citation needed]
On October 6, 2000, suffering from terminal cancer that left him partially paralyzed and in great pain, Farnsworth committed suicide by shooting himself at his ranch. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles in the Columbarium of Purity (N-63294) beside his wife, Margaret née Hill.[citation needed]
Awards and nominations
Comes a Horseman (1979)
The Grey Fox (1982)
Anne of Green Gables (1985)
Chase (1985)
The Straight Story (1999)
