Richard Harrison, sword-and-sandal and spaghetti Western lead, dies at 90

Richard Harrison, the American actor who spent decades as a lead in sword-and-sandal films, spaghetti Westerns and ninja pictures, has died at 90.

He died on Friday of natural causes in Los Angeles, producer and longtime friend Joan Borsten told The Hollywood Reporter. He was 90.

Harrison was born in Salt Lake City on May 26, 1935, according to The Hollywood Reporter. His acting career took him from Hollywood to Italy and later to Asia, where much of his work was made.

He became recognised as a leading man with The Invincible Gladiator (1962). The film was part of the sword-and-sandal cycle, low-budget adventures set in the ancient world and often built around muscular heroes, gladiators and mythical battles. Those films were made mainly in Italy and sold widely to international audiences.

Harrison then moved into Westerns made in Italy. Known as spaghetti Westerns, they were shot in Italy or Spain with international casts and later dubbed into several languages. It was routine for American actors to front them.

In one of the best-known stories of his career, Harrison turned down Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Harrison said he recommended Clint Eastwood for the part, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The film went on to give Eastwood a defining role.

For readers unfamiliar with that period, the decision is easier to understand in context. Leading men were offered many similar scripts in quick succession. There was no way to know which low-budget Western would travel.

Harrison kept working. He made more than 100 B-movies in his career, a term for low-budget films produced outside the major studio system and often released to fill out cinema programmes or, later, the home-video market. That later work included a run of ninja films in the 1980s, action pictures centred on martial-arts fighters and secret missions.

Borsten, who reported his death, described him as a longtime friend as well as a collaborator.