Richard Kiley's resonant voice suited authority figures, but his vulnerable supporting performances give us more to care about. We value him for making people matter in dramas whose writing can be blunt.
Fi1m perspective
Richard Kiley's John Patterson has work to do beyond advancing the story in The Phenix City Story (1955). Phil Karlson's crime drama can reduce its people to opposing positions, and Kiley helps stop that happening. We cared about the people here because he and Kathryn Crosby gave the human consequences weight when the writing was pushing hard for a reaction. Their performances cannot fix the slack plotting, but they give us a reason to stay with it.
His sonorous baritone suited principled authority figures, but Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street (1953) offers a less comforting use of his presence. Joey is a brutal operative, a useful part to remember when earnestness threatens to become the whole account of Kiley's acting. We recommend this brisk, funny thriller more strongly than The Phenix City Story, though Kiley is not our main reason. Richard Widmark, Jean Peters and Thelma Ritter are the performers we would chiefly send anyone to it for.
The early screen work also includes Richard Brooks's Blackboard Jungle (1955), with Kiley as the idealistic teacher Joshua Y. Edwards. His stage career took him into musicals, working under Bob Fosse's direction on Redhead (1959). He then originated the dual role of Cervantes and Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha (1965), which became his signature part. Later decades brought extensive television work and narration. In Jurassic Park (1993), he needs no visible presence at all: he supplies the park's tour-guide voice.
His film career remained largely supporting or sporadic after the 1950s, and the association with Don Quixote narrowed perceptions of what he could do. That makes the early crime films worth returning to, without requiring us to pretend that either belongs to him. Edward Andrews supplies much of the unease in Karlson's film, and Kiley's contribution works alongside that stronger presence. Start with Pickup on South Street; follow it with The Phenix City Story for the more sympathetic Kiley part.
Biography
Richard Kiley (1922–1999) was an American actor and singer. He appeared as Joey in the 1953 film Pickup on South Street.
Kiley had a distinguished stage career, winning Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Musical for Redhead (1959) and Man of La Mancha (1966), in which he originated the role of Don Quixote. He received nine Emmy Award nominations and won four, including for The Thorn Birds, A Year in the Life and Picket Fences.
His film roles include Blackboard Jungle (1955), Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), Endless Love (1981), Howard the Duck (1986), Phenomenon (1996) and Patch Adams (1998). He provided the voice of the Jurassic Park tour guide in Jurassic Park (1993).
