Richard Crenna, Actor Who Was Rambo’s Colonel, Dies
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actor Richard Crenna, who broke into the entertainment business as a squeaky-voiced adolescent on a radio comedy and inspired tough guys as an adult, playing Sylvester Stallone’s former commander in the “Rambo” movies, died on Friday, his family said. He was 76.
Crenna, whose six-decade career spanned drama and comedy in radio, television and the movies, died of heart failure that was a complication of pancreatic cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center near Beverly Hills.
The Los Angeles native made a name for himself playing adolescent Walter Denton on the radio series “Our Miss Brooks.” When the radio show moved to television, Crenna moved with it.
“He loved the camaraderie of a crew. He loved the creative process. He’s been working in it pretty much from the beginning,” said his son, actor Richard Anthony Crenna.
In the middle of his career, Crenna started playing dramatic roles. He won an Emmy Award in 1985 for his role as a macho cop who is sexually assaulted in the TV movie “The Rape of Richard Beck.”
He was also nominated once for his supporting role in the 1950s situation comedy “The Real McCoys,” about a West Virginia family that moved to a farm in southern California, and twice for his lead role in the 1960s drama “Slattery’s People,” about a state legislator crusading against injustice.
Action movie fans probably know him best for his role as Col. Trautman in the three Rambo movies, “First Blood,” (1982) “Rambo: First Blood II” (1985) and “Rambo III” (1988). He brought his comic sense to bear by parodying his tough-guy “Rambo” role in the 1993 spoof “Hot Shots! Part Deux.”
Crenna kept busy in his later years with a succession of television movies, including the 2001 Showtime cable project “The Day Reagan Was Shot,” and regular guest appearances on the television drama “Judging Amy.”
MIXING FAMILY AND ACTING
Crenna strove to balance work and family, bringing his wife and children with him on film shoots, including a year-long adventure in Hong Kong and Taiwan to film the 1966 naval epic “The Sand Pebbles.” Crenna played a courageous gunboat captain in the movie, which starred Steve McQueen.
Crenna’s son remembers arriving at a Taiwanese hotel for Christmas to find his father had imported and set up a Christmas tree.
The actor had beat cancer once. He was diagnosed with thyroid cancer about five years ago. The fatal pancreatic cancer struck late in 2002.
Crenna, who is survived by his wife, Penni, daughters Seana and Maria, son Richard and three granddaughters, was often described as a down-to-earth man who loved to act.
“There was no grump. I grew up seeing a man love to go to work,” said his daughter, Seana. She remembered her father pitching in on a family gardening project with workers who were never told they were working with a star.
“I would not be surprised if he took a lunch pail to work,” said Crenna’s son.
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