Andrew Prine, Actor in Westerns Including ‘Chisum’ and
‘Wide Country,’ Dies at 86
He starred on Broadway in 'Look Homeward, Angel' early in
his career, then portrayed lawmen in 'Bandolero!' and 'The Town That Dreaded
Sundown.'
The Hollywood Reporter
By Mike Barnes
November 3, 2022
Andrew Prine, the charming character actor who proved
quite comfortable in the saddle in Bandolero!, Chisum, Wide Country and dozens
of other Westerns on television and the big screen, has died. He was 86.
He died Monday in Paris of natural causes while on
vacation with his wife, actress-producer Heather Lowe, she told The Hollywood
Reporter. “He was the sweetest prince,” she said.
Prine also played the brother of Helen Keller (Patty Duke
in an Oscar-winning turn) in The Miracle Worker (1962) and portrayed a lawman
in Texarkana, Arkansas, who hunts a hooded serial killer alongside Ben Johnson
in the cult classic The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976).
Later in his career, he stood out as Confederate Gen.
Richard B. Garnett in the sprawling Gettysburg (1993).
In 1962-63, the lanky Prine got a taste of fame when he
starred as the younger brother of Earl Holliman — their characters are
traveling rodeo performers — on NBC’s Wide Country. Four years later, he played
the oldest son of Barry Sullivan on another NBC Western, The Road West.
Prine worked with director Andrew V. McLaglen on three
episodes of CBS’ Gunsmoke in 1962-63, and the pair reunited in 1968 for two
films, the William Holden-starring war film The Devil’s Brigade, and
Bandolero!, in which he and George Kennedy take after fugitives across the
Mexican border.
Prine teamed with John Wayne in Chisum (1970), also
helmed by McLaglen, and Rooster Cogburn (1975).
For his body of work in Westerns, he received the Golden
Boot Award in 2001.
The son of a Pullman conductor, Andrew Lewis Prine was
born on Feb. 14, 1936, in Jennings, Florida. He graduated from Miami Jackson
High School and attended the University of Miami on a theater scholarship but
dropped out and headed to New York to pursue acting.
In 1958, he took over Anthony Perkins’ role on Broadway
in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Look Homeward, Angel, written by Thomas Wolfe and
directed by George Roy Hill.
“I think one of the reasons I got it is because I was so
thin,” he told Backstage in an undated interview. “I weighed 138 pounds at
6-foot-2, so I looked exactly right for this character, who was supposed to be
this gangly 17-year-old. I swear to God, I think my diet had something to do
with it.
“I was getting free classes at that point from a lady in
The Actors Studio who liked me. But I was a very lazy actor. I was berated by
Old Man [Lee] Strasberg over the years and some other teachers who used to tell
me, ‘You’re not paying attention.’ But I did get training, in spite of myself.
“Fortunately, I did Look Homeward for two years, and what
I did while playing the lead and being paid was learn how to act. The stage
manager came backstage every night with copious notes, and his job was to keep
me on target. I learned how to act, really, on Broadway.”
Scouts from Universal saw him onstage and wanted him to
star on a rodeo series.
“So I said I’m just going to go out [to California] and
do [that] and I’m coming right back to Broadway,” he recalled in a 2013 episode
of A Word on Westerns. “Then I found out how much money they would give me just
to sit on a horse, and I said, ‘So long, Broadway.'”
In 1964, Prine played a doubting brother of David
Janssen’s Richard Kimble on the first season of ABC’s The Fugitive, and he had
a recurring role a year later on the final season of NBC’s Dr. Kildare, but
Westerns were his bread and butter.
In the 1960s, he guest-starred on Bonanza, The Virginian,
Wagon Train, Daniel Boone and Lancer and appeared in the Dean Martin-starring
Texas Across the River (1966), often doing his own stunts.
“I’ve been in many wrecks, as we call them, and broken my
knees and shoulders trying too hard to do stunts I should not have done and was
not qualified to do,” he said.
Prine stayed busy in the next decade, too. “I managed to
take on so many roles in the period during the 1970s because I never met a film
role I didn’t like,” he said in 2013. “I’m a working actor, I don’t wait a year
for a picture.” (He has more than 180 acting credits listed on IMDb.)
To promote the sexploitation thriller The Centerfold Girls
(1974), in which he starred as a sadistic serial killer, Prine posed nude for
the women’s magazine Viva in 1974. His other films of the era included One
Little Indian (1973) with James Garner, the Alan Rudolph-directed Terror Circus
(1973), Grizzly (1976) and The Evil (1978).
Prine played the father of Michael Manasseri and Lee
Tergesen’s characters on the 1994-98 USA series Weird Science and was the
“visitor” known as Steven on the 1983-84 NBC miniseries V and V: The Final
Battle.
He also acted for Quentin Tarantino on a two-part
Emmy-winning episode of CBS’ CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in 2005. On
television, he was in everything from The United States Steel Hour, Peter Gunn,
The Defenders and Combat! to The Bionic Woman, Saving Grace, Boston Legal and
Six Feet Under.
Prine was married to actress Sharon Farrell from 1962-63
and to actress Brenda Scott three times — from 1965-66, 1968-69 and 1973-78 —
before he wed Lowe in 1986. He also was romantically involved with actress
Karyn Kupcinet when she was murdered in 1963 in an infamous unsolved Hollywood
homicide.
Survivors also include his brother, John, and nephews
Nick (and his wife, Rhonda) and Kevin (and his wife, Kathy).
PRINE, Andrew (Andrew Louis Prine)
Born: 2/14/1936, Jennings, Florida, U.S.A.
Died: 10/31/2022, Paris, Île-de-France, France
Andrew Prine’s westerns – actor:
Overland Trail (TV) – 1960 (Hank Paulson)
Tombstone Territory (TV) – 1960 (Noah Bell)
Have Gun – Will Travel (TV) – 1961 (Billy Lampert, Bobby
Olson)
Gunsmoke (TV) – 1962, 1963 (Billy Joe, Clay)
Wide Country (TV) – 1962-1963 (Andy Guthrie)
The Great Adventure (TV) – 1963 (Billy the Kid)
Advance to the Rear – 1964 (Private Owen Selous)
Wagon Train (TV) – 1964, 1965 (Felix Colton, Eric Canden)
Bonanza (TV) – 1965 (George Whitman)
The Virginian (TV) – 1965, 1966, 1967 (Clint Evers, Will
Denning Brett Benton, Chuck Larson,
Tobe Larkin)
Texas Across the River – 1966 (Lieutenant Sibley)
The Road West (TV) – 1966-1967 (Timothy Pride)
Bandolero! – 1968 (Deputy Sheriff Roscoe Bookbinder)
Daniel Boone (TV) 1968 (Amos Fargo)
Lancer (TV) – 1968, 1970 (Will Guthrie, Gabe Lincoln)
This Savage Land (TV) 1969 (Timothy Pride)
Chisum – 1970 (Alex McSween)
One Little Indian – 1973 (Chaplain)
Kung Fu (TV) 1974 (White)
Barbary Coast (TV) – 1975 (Fitzgerald)
Rooster Cogburn – 1975 (Fiona’s husband)
Law of the Land (TV) – 1976 (Travis Carrington)
The Winds of Autumn – 1976 (Wire Hankins)
Donner Pass: The Road to Survival (TV) – 1978 Lewis
Keyser)
The Oregon Trail (TV) – 1978 (Hank Paulson, Joseph White)
Paradise (TV) – 1988 (Brenner)
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (TV) – 1993 (Thaddeus Birch)
The Avenging Angel (TV) – 1995 (Andrew Pike)
Walker, Texas Ranger (TV) – 1997 (Tim Kingston)
Gods and Generals – 2003 (Brigadier General Richard B.
Garnett)
Hell to Pay – 2005 (Matt Elden)
