Dick Simmons
Birthday:
19 August 1913, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
Birth Name:
Richard W. Simmons
Height:
180 cm
Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Richard Simmons later moved to Minneapolis where he attended West High School and then the University of Minnesota. While at university he competed in fencing and swimming and also acted in a few theater productions. He left the Twin Cities in the 1930s and spent several years traveling the world, working on freighters ...
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Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Richard Simmons later moved to Minneapolis where he attended West High School and then the University of Minnesota. While at university he competed in fencing and swimming and also acted in a few theater productions. He left the Twin Cities in the 1930s and spent several years traveling the world, working on freighters and tankers. Eventually he settled in Los Angeles where, according to one story, Louis B. Mayer saw him breaking in an Arabian horse and immediately offered him a screen test. Simmons played a number of minor parts in MGM movies but finally achieved a degree of fame in the mid-1950s when he starred in the half-hour syndicated TV series, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon (1955). With his horse Rex, and his husky King, Preston brought law-and-order into the 1890s Gold Rush as a member of the Northwest Mounted Police. Each episode ended with Preston hugging his dog and saying: "Well, King, it looks like this case is closed." Show less «
[on Gregg Barton] Gregg was a good man. Ironically, he played just the opposite characters in pictures. Perhaps his reason being most "heavy...Show more »
[on Gregg Barton] Gregg was a good man. Ironically, he played just the opposite characters in pictures. Perhaps his reason being most "heavy" parts had more to do, and for the most were better parts. He was truly a good actor. He was so well liked by all that knew him. I clearly recall one night. We were at a party. In the course of the evening a rather elderly lady came to me and said in no uncertain terms, "Mr. Simmons, I've seen you in several shows along with my dear friend Gregg Barton. And I'm sick and tired of seeing you try to beat the tar out of him. He's a very nice young man and deserves much better. Please pick on someone else". That says it all. The people who knew Gregg knew him for what he really was. A very nice, honest, good person. To this lady he was everything a gentleman should be. Gregg was such a fine actor he could portray quite the opposite very convincingly. Show less «
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