Biography
Possessing a crinkly yet boyish face and sparkling blue eyes, quintessential cowboy Richard Farnsworth began working as a stuntman and extra in the movie industry during the late 1930s. After forty years of relative anonymity, the ultimate late bloomer matured into one of Hollywood's archetypal aging country gentleman. Already making his living as a rodeo performer when he answered a casting call for 500 Mongolian horsemen, the Los Angeles native subsequently made his film debut as a stunt rider in "The Adventures of Marco Polo" (1938), starring Gary Cooper. Farnsworth continued on the rodeo circuit for another decade before concentrating exclusively on films, beginning with Howard Hawks' "Red River" (1948) and eventually appearing as a stuntman in more than 300 films. Some of his more notable feats included changing horses on the run in "The Pony Express" (1953) with Charlton Heston, driving a chariot in Cecil B DeMille's 1956 remake of "The Ten Commandments," doubling for Henry Fonda in Anthony Mann's "The Tin Star" (1957), and riding and fighting as a gladiator in Stanley Kubrick's "Spartacus" (1960), not to mention numerous exploits for Western TV series like "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok" (syndicated), "Zorro" (ABC), "Bonanza" and "High Chaparral" (both NBC).
