Richard Harrison (1936 to September 18, 2026), the handsome American actor who went to Italy in 1961 and built an extraordinary three-decade career as an international B-movie star, appearing in more than 100 films across Europe and Asia, died September 18, 2026, in Los Angeles. He was 90.
Harrison died of natural causes following the loss of his beloved Malibu estate, Villa Francesca, in the Palisades fire. He is survived by his second wife, Francesca Harrison, and three of his four children.
An “A” Life in “B” Movies
Harrison’s remarkable life and career took him from humble beginnings in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Hollywood and eventually to Italy, where he became one of the most recognizable American actors working in the European film industry.
In 2019, Harrison’s story became an inspiration for part of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, bringing renewed attention to the unusual world inhabited by American actors who found second careers making films overseas.
Born in 1936, Harrison grew up poor and relocated to Hollywood at age 17. Well-built and fit, he initially worked at gyms including Vic Tanny and Bert Goodrich, while also modeling and appearing in magazines featuring muscular men.
Industry friends encouraged him to pursue acting, and he studied at Twentieth Century Fox under renowned acting coach Sandy Meisner. Harrison subsequently landed bit parts in films including South Pacific, Jeanne Eagels, Too Much, Too Soon, and Master of the World.
His career changed dramatically when he signed a three-picture deal with American International Pictures (AIP). The agreement brought him to Italy, where he would spend the next three decades working throughout Europe and Asia, and where he also entered his first marriage to the daughter of AIP founder James Nicholson.
Harrison’s first Italian starring role came in The Invincible Gladiator (1962), directed by Alberto De Martino and Antonio Momplet. His physique and screen presence quickly established him as a mythological hero in the tradition of Steve Reeves.
One of his widely known early films was Gunfight at Red Sands (Duello nel Texas), directed by Ricardo Blasco in 1963.
Harrison also became part of one of the most famous stories in spaghetti-western history. He turned down the lead in Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, the film that helped launch the spaghetti-western phenomenon. Harrison recommended another American actor living in Italy, Clint Eastwood, for the role. Eastwood accepted, and the film became a defining moment in his career.
As work in Europe eventually diminished, Harrison found another audience in Asia, where he appeared in numerous low-budget ninja films.
The Dinner Parties at Villa Francesca
Away from the camera, Harrison was known for his legendary dinner parties, which famously ended with “pasta at midnight.”
His circle of friends included actors Franco Nero, Gore Vidal, Troy Donahue, Tab Hunter and Steve Reeves. Screenwriter Stewart Stern, director George Cukor, and Italian pop stars Al Bano and Romina Power were also part of that circle.
During the Cold War in 1985, Harrison also played a remarkable role in helping Soviet actor Oleg Vidov, often described as the “Russian Robert Redford,” defect to the United States through the U.S. Embassy in Rome.
In 1986, Harrison and Francesca relocated to Los Angeles and purchased a run-down three-and-a-half-acre property in Malibu overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together, they transformed the property into Villa Francesca, a celebrated gathering place for weddings, parties, filming, and friends from around the world.
The property’s guest house became a temporary home for an eclectic group of guests, including Italian Consul General Antonio Verde, Italian-American author and actress Veronica De Laurentiis and her husband, producer Ivan Kavalsky, as well as Oleg Vidov and his wife, Joan Borsten.
Despite achieving movie-star status, particularly in Italy, where he could rarely walk down the street without being recognized, Harrison remained remarkably grounded.
He viewed his career less as a quest for fame than as an opportunity to travel, experience different cultures, and meet fascinating people.
When asked how he decided which film to make next, Harrison reportedly had a simple philosophy. He would ask the producer where the movie would be filmed and accept the project if he had never been to that location.
“Once on the plane, he’d finally read the script.”
That philosophy perhaps best captured Richard Harrison’s extraordinary life, the story of an actor who never expected the world to become his stage, but embraced every opportunity to see it.
Richard Harrison leaves behind a legacy of more than 100 films, decades of international filmmaking, friendships that crossed continents, and an unconventional Hollywood story that continued to fascinate audiences long after the cameras stopped rolling.
Richard Harrison
1936 – September 18, 2026
Age 90
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