Peter Breck
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Peter Breck (born March 13, 1929, Haverhill, Massachusetts) is an American actor who has played roles on television and in film. One early role was as Doc Holliday on the series Maverick, a part that had been played twice earlier in the series by Gerald Mohr. Prior to that, he had guest-starring roles on a number of popular series, such as Sea Hunt, several episodes of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, Wagon Train, Have Gun – Will Travel, Gunsmoke, and ABC's 77 Sunset Strip. In the 1959-1960 season, he starred as a gunfighter-turned-lawyer in the NBC Western series "Black Saddle". He also appeared as a rival driver to Robert Mitchum in 1958's Thunder Road.
The first movie in which Breck was the top-billed star was Lad: A Dog (1962). The next year he played the leading roles in both Shock Corridor and the sci-fi horror film The Crawling Hand. During this timeframe he also made appearances on episodes of several more TV shows, such as The Outer Limits, Bonanza, Perry Mason, and The Virginian.
From 1965 to 1969 he starred in the ABC Western series The Big Valley, where he played Nick Barkley, ramrod of the Barkley ranch and son to Barbara Stanwyck's character Victoria Barkley. The second of four sons, Nick was the hotheaded, short-tempered brother. Always spoiling for a fight, Breck's character took the slightest offense to the Barkley name personally and quickly made his displeasure known, as often with his fists as with his vociferous shouts. Often this proved to be a mistake and only through the calming influence of his mother and cooler-headed brothers, Jarrod (played by Richard Long and Heath (Lee Majors), was a difficult situation rectified. However, for all his bluster and whitehot temper, Breck's portrayal was not without nuance. Nick quite often displayed an undying, palpable loyalty and tenderness to his siblings and mother.
Even more impressive displays of these qualities, and the best examples of Breck's fine work on the series, occurred when highly respected actors made guest appearances. Two in particular stand out. Martin Landau portrayed a rancher of Mexican descent who grew up on the Barkley ranch, roughly the same age as Nick. Now grown and driving his own herd (Anthrax stricken) to market, he stops to graze and water his cattle, and to reminisce with the Barkley family. Nick's vivid childhood recollections, though not all pleasant, give us the deepest insight into the character's foundations. His compassion and understanding of his friend's plight and the racial inequality faced by Mexicans in a land originally their own, display the full depth of Breck's mastery of the role.
Another equally powerful performance addressing the larger and timely (late 1960s) issues of race and prejudice are keyed by guest star Lou Rawls playing a drifting cowboy. Hired by Nick, Rawls impressively displays superior rodeo ability and the two quickly strike up a deep friendship. After dinner one evening on the trail, Rawls delivers a powerful yet vulnerable rendition of "Swing Low Sweet Chariot". Nick's low-key but comprehending response to Rawls fully illuminates Breck's underappreciated subtlety as Nick. This ABC hit series, like his earlier series, Black Saddle, was produced by Dick Powell's Four Star Television.
Most of his roles in the 1970s and 1980s were more TV guest-starring performances, on series such as Alias Smith and Jones, Mission: Impossible, McMillan and Wife, S.W.A.T., The Six Million Dollar Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Dukes of Hazzard, as well as roles as himself on Fantasy Island, and The Fall Guy starring former television "brother" Lee Majors.
In the mid-1980s, Breck moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with his wife Diane and son Christoper. He was asked by a casting director to teach one class a week to young actors on film technique. That one-a-week class became a full time acting school - The Breck Academy - which he ran for ten years. In 1990 Breck appeared in the Canadian cult film Terminal City Ricochet.
In 1996 he appeared in an episode of the new version of The Outer Limits.
His most recent TV performance was on an episode of John Doe in 2002. In recent years most of his movie performances have been in undistributed films that are shown only at film festivals.
