Rick Jason

Childhood

An only child of Jewish parents, Jason was expelled from several prep schools before graduating from Rhodes Preparatory School in Manhattan.

Military service

Rick Jason served from 1943 to 1945 in the U.S. Army Air Corps, during World War II. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he visited American troops serving in Vietnam on several USO tours.

Acting career

After the War, Jason attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts on the G.I. Bill, as well as holding a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. While in attendance at a New York City play, he was spotted by Hume Cronyn, who then cast him in Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. The role earned Jason a Theater World Award and a Hollywood contract with Columbia Pictures. Later, MGM was searching for an actor to replace Fernando Lamas in the 1953 movie Sombrero and gave the role to Jason, who was earlier released from Columbia Pictures. This led to Jason being cast in The Saracen Blade (1954) and This Is My Love (1954).

Fox signed him for the male lead role in The Lieutenant Wore Skirts (1956) and later signed for a multi-picture contract. His first project was an adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Wayward Bus (1957) with Jayne Mansfield and Joan Collins, which earned him critical acclaim. A string of good performances, both in films and on television, then followed. In 1956, Jason played the lead in The Fountain of Youth, a half-hour unsold pilot written and directed by Orson Welles which won the Peabody Award in 1958.

Soon after, Jason received offers for television series. He guest-starred on ABC's anthology series, The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse. In 1954, he played Joaquin Murietta, the notorious Mexican bandit of the California Gold Rush, in an episode of Jim Davis's syndicated western series Stories of the Century, the story of a railroad detective investigating crime in the American West. In 1960, he starred as insurance investigator Robin Scott in The Case of the Dangerous Robin. He appeared on the NBC interview program Here's Hollywood, in the Rawhide episodes "Incident of the Coyote Weed" and "Incident of the Valley in Shadow", and co-starred in 1969 in The Monk.

In 1962, he began starring in the television series Combat! as Platoon Leader 2nd Lt. Gil Hanley, probably his most memorable role. The show memorably also starred Vic Morrow as Sgt. Chip Saunders and Conlan Carter as Doc. Combat! was a hit and lasted for five seasons and 152 episodes.

After Combat!, Rick returned to stage acting. He made films in Japan and Israel, as well as films such as Color Me Dead (1969), The Day of the Wolves (1971), The Witch Who Came from the Sea (1976), Love and the Midnight Auto Supply (1977), Partners (1982) and Illegally Yours (1988). In 1970, he took the lead in the pilot for Prudence and the Chief. His TV career went well in the 1970s and 1980s, when he appeared in shows like Matt Houston, Police Woman, Murder, She Wrote, Moonlighting, Wonder Woman, Fantasy Island, Airwolf and Dallas, and played Cornelius Vanderbilt in the 1989 miniseries Around the World in 80 Days. In 1973, he was a frequent character on The Young and the Restless.

Retirement

After retiring from screen appearances, Jason kept busy by doing voice-overs for commercials and wrote his autobiography, Scrapbooks of My Mind. In 2000, he attended a Combat! reunion in Las Vegas with fellow cast members.

Death

Jason died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound one week after the Combat! reunion, on October 16, 2000, in Moorpark, California, where he lived. He left no note. Authorities said the actor was "despondent" over "unspecified personal matters."

His body was cremated and interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California in the Cathedral Mausoleum, Valentino Shrine area, Tier 5.