Randy Boone, the singer and actor who played ranch hand Randy Benton on the classic TV show The Virginian, died on August 28 2025 at the age of 83.
Randy Boone was born on January 17 1942 in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He graduated from Fayetteville High School and then enrolled at North Carolina State College in Raleigh where he majored in mathematics. During this period, he began performing as a folk singer at bars and night clubs. He eventually dropped out of college to take up performing full time. He travelled around the United States for 18 months before winding up in Los Angeles.
It was a fellow performer who told Randy Boone about a television producer who was searching for someone to play a folk singing college student on a television show. He tried out for the part and was cast cast on the comedy-drama It's a Man's World as folk singer and college student Vern Hodges on It's a Man's World. It ran only half a season from September 17 1962 to January 28 1963. Hr joined The Virginian as ranch hand Randy Benton in the show's second season episode "First to Thine Own Self." He often sang on the show and many of the songs he had composed himself. He left the show in 1966 and went on to play reporter and photographer Francis Wilde on the single-season Western Cimarron Strip.
During the Sixties, Randy Boone also guest starred on the shows The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Wagon Train, The Twilight Zone, The Fugitive, Combat!,. Bonanza, and Hondo. He made his film debut in 1966 in Country Boy. In the Seventies, he guest starred on Lassie, Emergency!, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Gunsmoke, Kung Fu, and The Quest. He appeared in the movies Terminal Island (1973) and Dr. Minx (1975). In the Eighties he appeared on the TV show Highway to Heaven and in the movie The Wild Pair (1987). He retired from acting in the late Eighties and then worked in construction.
Randy Boone was always enjoyable to see on screen. He was a welcome addition to The Virginian, where his character's youthful enthusiasm and songs made many episodes even more enjoyable. His character Francis Wilde on Cimarron Strip differed from Randy Benton on The Virginian in that he was from a city (St. Louis) and was both curious and excited to be in the Far West. Of course, Randy Boone was more than a talented composer and singer who could play youthful characters. All his character in the Bonanza episode "The Ballad of the Ponderosa" had in common with Randy Benton and Francis Wilde was youth. He was bent on avenging his father, who he felt had been wrongly hanged. In the Combat! episode "The Letter," he played a young soldier who reminded Saunders (Vic Morrow) too much of his younger brother. Randy Boone gave a number of solid performances in his career, and he was always enjoyable to watch on screen.
