Peter Breck

Peter Breck got his first taste of acting while attending the University of Houston, in Texas. He began working at the Alley Theatre there, gaining experience by performing in a variety of productions. Before long, on the strength of his performances, he was invited to join the renowned Washington Arena Stage theater company. After his performance in George Bernard Shaw's "The Man of Destiny," actor Robert Mitchum went back stage and asked Breck, "Do you want to make a movie?" He had already made several small television appearances, but his role as a moonshiner, Stacey Gouge, in Mitchum's 1958 crime thriller, "Thunder Road," had a major impact on his career. Following the film, he relocated to Los Angeles; Mitchum supported his move, even lending him a Jaguar to drive. In 1959, he landed the lead role as Clay Culhane, a retired gunfighter who becomes a lawyer, in the Western series "Black Saddle." Following that series conclusion a year later, Breck signed a contract with Warner Brothers, becoming a contract player for them. In 1965, he took on his best known role as Nick Barkley, the bad-tempered son of Barbara Stanwyck's character, in the popular Western series "The Big Valley." Following its conclusion in 1969, he began making guest-star appearances in all of Warner's series. If you watched television in the 1970s and '80s, he was hard to miss. He appeared in episodes of "The Six Million Dollar Man," "The Dukes of Hazzard," and "The Fall Guy," to name only a few.