Original title: Randy Boone, Actor on ‘The Virginian,’ Dies at 83
Randy Boone, who rode his own horse and portrayed the singing and guitar-playing ranch hand Randy Benton on the long-running NBC series The Virginian, has died. He was 83. Boone died Thursday, his wife, Lana, told The Hollywood Reporter. She did not want to divulge any other details. The North Carolina native also was a regular on two other 1960s series, but each of those lasted just one season: the 1962-63 NBC comedy-drama It’s a Man’s World and the 1967-68 CBS Western Cimarron Strip, starring Stuart Whitman. And in the 1963 Twilight Zone episode “The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms,” Boone starred as one of the National Guardsmen (Warren Oates and Ron Foster are the others) who somehow are sent back in time to take part in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. A contract player at Universal, Boone joined The Virginian, which starred James Drury and Doug McClure, midway through its second season in February 1964. He stuck around for 46 episodes through the end of the fourth season in April 196