Richard Whorf (June 4, 1906 – December 14, 1966) was an American film actor who later became a director. Whorf was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts. He began his acting career on the Boston stage as a teenager then moving to Broadway when he was 21. Early on, he was in a production of Taming of the Shrew at the Globe Theatre in New York City. He moved to Hollywood and became a contract player in movies of the 1930s and 1940s before becoming a director in 1944.
He appeared in films which include Christmas Holiday (1944), Blues in the Night (1941), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), and Keeper of the Flame (1942). He directed a number of television programs in the 1950s and 1960s, the best known being the CBS hit comedy The Beverly Hillbillies.
Whorf's hobby was painting -- he sold his first painting at age 15 for $100. Many of his small town landscape paintings reflected his American worldview and seemed to be inspired by painters like Grant Wood and Norman Rockwell. In the March 17, 1963 TV Channels syndicated rotogravure newspaper magazine, his painting career was profiled and his studio photographed. For the article, he told a reporter, "Who says that a man has to do one thing?"
Won Broadway's 1954 Tony Award as Best Costume Designer for "Ondine."
As a teen was on the summer stock stage with the Copley Theatre Players.
A director of lighter entertainment in the 1950s and 1960s on such shows as "My Three Sons" (1960), he had three sons of his own.
His film acting debut was a prime featured part in Midnight (1934) with a relatively unknown actor, Humphrey Bogart, appearing in a small but standout role. Ironically, Richard's last major acting role, Chain Lightning (1950) was in a Bogie film vehicle in which Richard is killed off.
Staid, darkly handsome young actor of Broadway who played sedentary second lead film roles during WWII.
