Richard Crenna was an American director and actor who had a net worth of $5 million. Richard Crenna was recognized for his

Richard Crenna’s Netq Worth

acting roles in the TV shows “Our Miss Brooks,” “The Real McCoys,” “Slattery’s People,” and “All’s Fair.” He also acted in many movies, such as “Marooned,” “Un flic,” “Breakheart Pass,” “The Evil,” “Summer Rental,” and the first three movies in the “Rambo” series.

Early Life and Education

Richard Crenna was born on 30 November 1926 in Los Angeles, California as the sole child of hotel manager Edith and pharmacist Domenick. He was Italian-American. Crenna went to Virgil Junior High School and Belmont Senior High School, graduating from the latter in 1944. He served in the United States Army from 1945 to 1946. When he returned, Crenna went to the University of Southern California, where he graduated in English literature with a bachelor’s degree.

Career Start on Radio

Crenna started his acting career as a child on radio, where his first appearance was in “Boy Scout Jamboree” in the late 1930s. In the late 1940s, he started working on “The Great Gildersleeve” and “Our Miss Brooks” as Walter Thompson and Walter Denton. Crenna’s other radio roles included the appearance in “My Favorite Husband,” “A Date with Judy,” and “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.”

Television Career

After a starring role on the CBS radio series “Our Miss Brooks,” Crenna stuck with the cast when the show transferred to television in 1952. He appeared on the show from 1952 until 1955. Crenna then showed up in episodes of “The Millionaire,” “Frontier,” “Medic,” “Father Knows Best,” and “Matinee Theatre.” His next regular television role came when he began playing Luke McCoy on the sitcom “The Real McCoys” in 1957. Crenna co-starred with Walter Brennan and Kathleen Nolan, and received an Emmy Award nomination for his

performance. He also oversaw numerous episodes of the series, which lasted six seasons to mid-1963. Crenna directed a number of episodes of “The Andy Griffith Show” between 1963 and 1964. Between 1964 and 1965, he played fictional California state senator James Slattery on the CBS show “Slattery’s People,” for which he was nominated twice for an Emmy Award. Crenna returned to the small screen in the 1970s, with guest spots on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” and roles in such TV movies as “Double Indemnity,” “Shootout in a One-Dog Town,” and “A Girl Named Sooner.”

Crenna’s next leading role in a regular series came in 1976, when he began playing Richard C. Barrington on the CBS sitcom “All’s Fair.” Bernadette Peters was his co-star. The series was ultimately short-lived, lasting a single season during the spring of 1977. Crenna acted in numerous television movies after that, including “Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell,” “A Fire in the Sky,” and “Mayflower: The Pilgrims’ Adventure.” He also directed the television movie “Better Late Than Never” and appeared in the epic miniseries “Centennial.” Crenna mostly acted in television movies during the 1980s, with credits like “Fugitive Family,” “The Day the Bubble Burst,” “Passions,” “The Rape of Richard Beck,” “A Case of Deadly Force,” “Kids Like These,” “Internal Affairs,” and “The Case of the Hillside Stranglers.” For his portrayal of the title character in “The Rape of Richard Beck,” Crenna received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.

Among his other TV credits during the 1980s, Crenna had a role on the short-lived ABC sitcom “It Takes Two” and played Henry Ross Perot in the NBC miniseries “On Wings of Eagles.” During the 1990s, he again concentrated primarily on television films, including appearances in “Montana,” “A Place to Be Loved,” “In the Name of Love: A Texas Tragedy,” “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” and “Deep Family Secrets,” among many other entries.

Crenna also appeared on the short-lived ABC crime drama “Pros and Cons” and in the CBS miniseries “Intruders,” and appeared in four episodes of the legal drama series “JAG.” His last significant role in a series was that of the recurring character Jared Duff on “Judging Amy,” which he held from 2000 to 2003. Throughout that period, Crenna played Ronald Reagan in the Showtime television movie “The Day Reagan Was Shot.” Crenna’s last small-screen outing was in another Showtime television movie, “Out of the Ashes,” which aired three months after his death in 2003.

Film Career

In 1952, the same year he started acting on television, Crenna had his first major film appearances in “The Pride of St. Louis” and “It Grows on Trees.” Four years later, he appeared in “Over-Exposed” and the big-screen version of “Our Miss Brooks.” Crenna wasn’t seen on the big screen again until 1965, when he played the title role in the comedy “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!” He followed up with appearances in “Made in Paris,” “The Sand Pebbles,” “Wait Until Dark,” and “Star!” Ending the decade, Crenna starred in

the comedy “Midas Run” and the science-fiction thriller “Marooned.” He had his largest single year on the big screen in 1971, appearing in four films: the dramas “Doctors’ Wives” and “Red Sky at Morning” and the Westerns “The Deserter” and “Catlow.” In 1972, Crenna teamed with Alain Delon for Jean-Pierre Melville’s last film, “Un flic.” Throughout the next several years, he appeared in “The Man Called Noon” and “Breakheart Pass.” In the late 1970s, Crenna had leading roles in “The Evil,” “Stone Cold Dead,” and “Wild Horse Hank.”

Beginning the 1980s, Crenna appeared in the horror movie “Death Ship.” He then appeared as the ill-fated husband of Kathleen Turner’s character in the 1981 erotic thriller “Body Heat.” Crenna first appeared as Colonel Sam Trautman in the action war movie “First Blood” with Sylvester Stallone in 1982. He continued to appear in the first two sequels, “Rambo: First Blood Part II” (1985) and “Rambo III” (1988). While so doing, Crenna acted

in “Table for Five” (1983), “The Flamingo Kid” (1984), and “Summer Rental” (1985), winning a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for playing gin rummy champion Phil Brody in “The Flaming Kid.” His final appearance of the decade came in the 1989 science-fiction horror film “Leviathan.” Crenna’s work during the 1990s included the erotic thriller “Jade,” Sydney Pollack’s remake of “Sabrina,” and the parody films “Hot Shots! Part Deux” and “Wrongfully Accused.” In posthumous releases, he was seen in archival footage as Colonel Sam Trautman in the “Rambo” sequels “Rambo” (2009) and “Rambo: Last Blood” (2019).

Personal Life and Death

Crenna was married to his first wife, Joan Grisham, between 1950 and the divorce in 1955. He was married to second wife, Penni Sweeney, between 1959 and the time of his death. Crenna had three children in total.