Dick York Net Worth

Dick York's Quotes

• You know, three whales get in trouble and people from all over volunteer to help. Wouldn't it be wonderful if one old has-been actor with a hose up his nose could help millions?
• I have done more in this chair here than I could have ever done in Hollywood.
• I don't work because I love it. In our household, work is something Daddy does to provide us with things we need for our physical comforts . . . I love other things more than my work.
• [Of his seizure that caused him to end his best-known role on Bewitched (1964)]: I was too sick to go on. I had a temperature of 105, full of strong antibiotics, for almost 10 days. I went to work that day but I was sick. I lay in my dressing room after being in make-up, waiting to be called on the set. They knew I was feeling pretty rotten, and they tried to give me time to rest. I kept having chills. This was the middle of the summer and I was wearing a sheepskin jacket and I was chilling. I was shaking all over. Then, while sitting on a scaffolding with Maurice Evans, being lit for a special effects scene: They were setting an inky - that's a little tiny spot[light] that was supposed to be just flickering over my eyes. That flickering, flickering flickering made me feel weird. And I'm sitting on this platform up in the air...and I turned to Gibby, who was just down below, and I said, 'Gibby, I think I have to get down.' He started to help me down and that's the last thing I remember until I woke up on the floor. That's about all I remember of the incident...and I'd managed to bite a very large hole in the side of my tongue before they could pry my teeth apart.
• [Just before his death]: I am happy, complete. I know that you've known me a very longtime, I've been on television, I've been in your living rooms and now I'm in your heart!

Interesting Facts about Dick York

1. York first injured his back while working on the 1959 film They Came to Cordura (1959).
2. At the age of 15, York was the star of the network radio program "That Brewster Boy".
3. Buried at Plainfield Cemetery, Rockford, Kent County, Michigan.
4. Moved to Michigan in the mid '80s to care for his wife's ill mother and was diagnosed with emphysema shortly after.
5. Was left impoverished in 1976 after a real estate investment failed, and was on welfare for a time.
6. Started a charity called "Acting for Life". He spent most of his time on the telephone raising money for the homeless and getting people to donate food and clothing.
7. He and his family suffered during the depression from starvation and lack of money. York said that what had inspired him to start his charity Acting for Life, which helped the homeless.
8. Special furniture was used on the set of Bewitched (1964) for him owing to his back problems. Other cast and crew members also helped him get around on the set. He was terminated from the show, when he suddenly collapsed on the set in 1969.
9. Best remembered by the public for his co-starring role as Darrin Stephens in Bewitched (1964).
10. Appeared six times on the Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) TV series, but never met the famed director in person.
11. Director Stanley Kramer allowed Dick to write his first scene in the movie Inherit the Wind (1960), in which his character, educator Bertram Cates, goes on trial for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. This was his last film role. He subsequently concentrated on TV.
12. During the filming of They Came to Cordura (1959), Dick was seriously injured during a railroad handcar scene. He and Gary Cooper were propelling a handcar down a railroad track with other men when he accidentally lifted the mechanism without his comrades' help and wrenched his back, tearing the muscles along the right side of his back. For him it was the beginning of the end. He grew addicted to painkillers and struggled valiantly another decade before retiring in 1969.
13. Appeared in three films with Jack Lemmon: My Sister Eileen (1955), Operation Mad Ball (1957) and Cowboy (1958).
14. First work on Broadway was a supporting role in "Tea and Sympathy" starring John Kerr and Deborah Kerr. The play opened on September 30, 1953. His success in this play led to a contract with Columbia Pictures.
15. Moved to New York in 1951 and took a room at a YMCA. He eventually became a working New York radio actor on a number of series.
16. Met future wife, Joan Alt, while doing radio's "Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy". Joan came in to do a commercial on the show.
17. Was enrolled in The Jack and Jill Players, a children's acting school, in Chicago. This training led to his first professional break with a two-year stretch as "That Brewster Boy" on radio during WWII while a teenager. "That Brewster Boy" was inspired by the success of "The Aldrich Family". He then went on to join the radio series "Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy" playing Billy Fairchild, Jack's friend, for six years (until 1951).
18. Was first influenced to become an actor when he saw the Cecil B. DeMille film The Crusades (1935).
19. His father, Bernard, was a salesman. His mother worked as a seamstress and later operated a beauty shop. The family moved from Indiana to Chicago when he was ten.
20. His very revealing autobiography is entitled "The Seesaw Girl and Me".