Passing of Randy Boone: Tributes Flow for Legendary Hollywood Western Star

Legendary actor Randy Boone has died aged 83, his family has confirmed. The Hollywood star was best known for riding his own horse as he portrayed the singing and guitar-playing ranch hand Randy Benton on the long-running NBC series The Virginian, starring alongside James Drury and Doug McClure.

Boone died Thursday, August 28, according to his wife, Lana. However, she told The Hollywood Reporter that she did not want to divulge any other details about his death. As well as starring on The Virginian, Boone also had regular parts on two other hit shows from the 60s – It’s a Man’s World and Western Cimarron Strip – but both of the programmes only lasted one series each. Boone later landed a role in an episode of The Twilight Zone as one of the National Guardsmen, where his character was sent back in time to take part in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The star took on the role of Randy Benton during The Virginian’s second series in February 1964. He stayed on the show for two seasons, appearing in 46 episodes, before being let go at the end of the fourth season in April 1966.

In Paul Green’s 2006 book, A History of Television’s The Virginian, Boone addressed his show exit, saying: “I was told that [producer] Frank [Price] thought I was window dressing and wasn’t needed on the show, but I feel that I was needed as much as anybody.”

He added: “I think a show suffers when you make big changes and you lose the actors that caused the people to fall in love with it.”

In his Youth, Boone loved to play the guitar. He shared: “I’m going to take my guitar and I’m going to hitchhike around the country and have some fun until the Army drafts me and then I’ll let them beat some discipline into me. I couldn’t wait to get out of school and have a good time.”

After travelling around for 18 months, he landed a contract with Universal Studios, where he was first cast as Vern Hodges, a folk-singing college student on a new series called on It’s a Man’s World.

However, he was still under contract when the show was cancelled after one series, so he – and his pet horse, Clyde – were hired to join the cast of The Virginian.

Boone said he would let Universal use his horse for free if he could board him at the studio, and executives agreed.

Boone said that he wrote many of the songs that he performed on the show, saying he wanted to “feel like I’m putting something special into the work.” He signed away the rights to the songs but was surprised and delighted to receive royalties years later.

He left acting in the late 1980s and went on to work in construction.