Peter Breck
Peter Breck was born in Rochester, New York, United States on March 13th, 1929 and is the TV Actor. At the age of 82, Peter Breck biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
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Joseph Peter Breck (March 13, 1929 – February 6, 2012) was an American character actor.
The rugged, dark-haired Breck played the gambler and gunfighter Doc Holliday on the ABC/Warner Bros.
television series Maverick but is best known for his role as Victoria Barkley's (Barbara Stanwyck) hot-tempered, middle son Nick in the 1960s ABC/Four Star Western, The Big Valley.
Breck also had the starring role in an earlier NBC/Four Star Western television series entitled Black Saddle.
Early years
Joseph Peter Breck was born in Rochester, New York. He grew up living with his grandparents in Haverhill, Massachusetts, because they felt they could provide a more stable home environment than his father, who often traveled as a jazz musician. He attended the University of Houston, where he studied English and drama.
Personal life
Breck married dancer Diane Bourne in 1960. They had a son, Christopher, who died of leukemia at age 30.
Career
Breck played competitive basketball for the Rochester Royals during the 1948-1949 season following post-World War II United States Navy service in the 1940s. (CV-42). He spent time as a ranch hand at the University of Houston, researching drama, and then went on to make his on-screen debut in a 1958 film that was eventually released under the name The Beatniks.
Breck also appeared on several television shows, including Sea Hunt, several episodes of Wagon Train, Have Gun – Will Travel, Perry Mason, and Gunsmoke. In 1956, he and David Janssen appeared in John Bromfield's syndicated series Sheriff of Cochise, "The Turkey Farmers." In the episode "The Deserter" of the American Civil War drama Gray Ghost, he appeared in another syndicated series, with Tod Andrews playing the title role.
When Robert Mitchum saw Breck in George Bernard Shaw's "Man of Destiny" in Washington, D.C., he offered Breck a job as a rival driver in Thunder Road (1958). Mitchum assisted Breck in moving to Los Angeles, California. Mitchum loaned Breck his Jaguar because he didn't have his own car. Mitchum introduced Breck to Dick Powell, who was under contract with Four Star Productions, where Breck appeared in Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre, the CBS western anthology collection.
In the 1958 episode "The Lady Gambler" of the ABC western series "The Gambler", starring Pat Conway and Richard Eastham, Breck appeared alongside fellow guest star Diane Brewster. Breck appeared in a syndicated Highway Patrol episode starring Broderick Crawford in the same year. He was also cast in an episode of NBC's The Restless Gun, starring John Payne. Hoyt Fly, a murder suspect convicted of murder in 1958, was portrayed by a cowboy on a Texas cattle drive. In the same year, Breck appeared as the villain in a Wagon Train episode, "The Story of Tobias Jones," opposite Lou Costello.
Clay Culhane, the gunfighter-turned-lawyer on ABC western Black Saddle, appeared in secondary roles for Russell Johnson, Anna-Lisa, J. Pat O'Malley, and Walter Burke from January 1959 to May 1960. Unlike in the Big Valley, in which Breck was an easily enraged rancher, he is low-key, restrained, and considerate as the lawyer Culhane.
Breck appeared on Warner Bros. Television, where he appeared as Doc Holliday on Maverick twice, a part that had been portrayed twice by Gerald Mohr and Adam West on ABC's Lawman. Breck appeared in several other ABC/WB series of the time, including Cheyenne, 77 Sunset Strip, The Roaring Twenties (as trumpet player Joe Peabody in the episode "Big Town Blues"), and The Gallant Man. In the ABC/WB Western series "Bronco," starring Ty Hardin, he was depicted as a young Theodore Roosevelt in 1961 episode "The Yankee Tornado." In a crossover appearance on "The Yankee Tornado," Will Hutchins of ABC/WB Western series Sugarfoot stars Will Hutchins.
Lad, A Dog (1962), Breck's first acting role in a film. He appeared in both Samuel Fuller's Shock Correspondence and the science fiction horror film The Crawling Hands for the next year. He also appeared in The Glory Guys, a cavalry film. Clay Eliott of the famed Blast, "The Case of the Gambling Lady," and 1965's "The Case of the Gambling Lady," despite his appearances on Perry Mason from 1963 to 1965. He appeared on episodes of such television series as Mr. Novak, The Outer Limits, and Bonanzaand The Virgin.
Breck was considered for leads on two popular television series created by Quinn Martin The Fugitive (1963) and 12 O'Clock High (1964), with Breck adding, "If you are a leading man in Hollywood, you either draw $250,000 like Steve McQueen or you had better be in a series."
Breck appeared on The Big Valley from 1965 to 1969, from Nick Barkley, foreman of the Barkley ranch and son, to Barbara Stanwyck's character, Victoria Barkley. Nick was hotheaded, short-tempered, and very fast with a pistol in the second of four children. Breck's character was unquestionably spoiled for a fight and often wearing leather gloves, and he took the slightest offense to the Barkley name personally and hurled his displeasure immediately, much with his fists as well as his vociferous yells. Often this was a mistake and only after the calming influence of his mother and younger siblings, Jarrod (Lee Majors), brother Heath (Lee Majors), sister Audra (Linda Evans), and Eugene (Charles Briles), which was sent out after season 1 when he was first admitted to the Army, would a difficult situation be rectified. Breck, who has been an Barbara Stanwyck fan since the 1940s, formed an on- and off-screen chemistry with her, including long lines and even being a ranch foreman on set. Since the series was cancelled, he stayed close to her until her death.
In 1970, Lafe Harkness appeared on the TV western "In the episode "Hannah" a lading name for The Virgin. The bulk of his performances in the 1970s and 1980s included television guest stars on such films as Alias Smith and Jones, Mission: Impossible, McMillan & Wife, S.W.A.T., The Dukes of Hazzard, The Hazzard, The People's Dead, as well as supporting roles as himself on Fantasy Island and "Total," which also starred former television "brother" Lee Majors.
Breck and his wife Diane and their son, Christopher, migrated to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in the mid-1980s. A casting director had requested him to teach young actors on film technique. That once-a-week class, The Breck Academy, became a full-time acting school, which he supervised for ten years. Breck appeared in the Canadian cult film Terminal City Ricochet in 1990.
Breck was alerted of Barbara Stanwyck's death while teaching at the drama school on January 20, 1990. She did not attend neither funeral nor memorial service.
In 1991, Sham-Ir, the chief of all genies, appeared in the NBC-TV movie special I Still Dream of Jeannie, the second reunion film starring Barbara Eden and Bill Daily, as well as Al Waxman and Ken Kercheval.
Breck played Sheriff Hatch in the film The Unnamable II: Randolph Carter's (1993).
He appeared in an episode of The Outer Limits, which was released in 1996.
In "Critters," a 1998 episode of The New Batman Adventures, Breck appeared as Farmer Brown.
In 2002, his last television appearance was on an episode of John Doe. The bulk of his film appearances have been in undistributed films that are exclusive to film festivals, prior to his death.