John Richardson, star of One Million Years B.C. and She, dies of COVID complications

John Richardson, the British actor who starred in She and One Million Years B.C. passed away on Tuesday, Jan. 5 from COVID-19, The Hollywood Reporter confirms. He was 86 years old.

Richardson’s acting career spanned the late '50s to the early '90s, with his most memorable work taking place in the 1960s. One of his first major roles was as Dr. Gorobec in the 1960 horror film Black Sunday, where he fought against a witch who has taken over the body of his sister.

The thesp's best-known roles, however, include She (1965), where he played an archeologist who finds a lost city ruled by a magical queen (Ursula Andress); and One Million Years B.C. (1966), where he starred across from Raquel Welch and animated dinosaurs. Richardson also starred in 1968's She sequel, The Vengeance of She, where the almost-immortal queen embodies a young European girl named Carol.

Richardson also starred in several spaghetti Westerns in the '60s, and screen-tested to be the next James Bond after Sean Connery bowed out. While he did not get to play 007, he went on to act in several other films including Frankenstein ’80, Eyeball, Reflections in Black, War of the Planets, and Battle of the Stars. His last acting role was in the 1994 TV movie, Milner.

According to THR, Richardson spent his later years focused on photography. He also had a passion for automobiles, and had been said to agree to act in a film if he was promised a car in the contract. He was married to actress Martine Beswick (One Million Years B.C., From Russia With Love) from 1967 to 1973.