Paul Richards

Paul Richards was an American actor whose screen career spanned the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. A Hollywood native, he earned a psychology degree and then a drama master's degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, and he also trained at the Theatre Wing in New York. He became a frequent guest player on television, appearing in westerns, crime dramas and other series, including four episodes of Gunsmoke and three of The Mod Squad. Between 1963 and 1964 he starred in the medical drama Breaking Point as Dr. McKinley Thompson. In Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) he played the mutant leader Mendez, and he had a minor film role as a prisoner in Demetrius and the Gladiators. He also worked as a commercial spokesman for Pontiac, Braniff Airways and American Express, and he narrated Monument to the Dream, a documentary about the Gateway Arch that received an Academy Award nomination. He died in 1974.