Early career After post-World War II
United States Navy service in the 1940s on the
aircraft carrier , Breck played professional basketball for the
Rochester Royals during the 1948–49 season. He then worked as a ranch hand while studying drama at the
University of Houston, and went on to make his on-screen debut in a 1958 film that was eventually released under the title
The Beatniks. As well as performing in live theatre, Breck had several guest-starring roles on a number of popular series, such as
Sea Hunt, several episodes of
Wagon Train,
Have Gun – Will Travel,
Perry Mason, and
Gunsmoke (a disturbed cowboy in the 1963 title role in "The Odyssey of Jubal Tanner"). When
Robert Mitchum saw Breck in
George Bernard Shaw's play
The Man of Destiny in
Washington, DC, he offered Breck a role as a rival driver in
Thunder Road (1958). Mitchum helped Breck to relocate to
Los Angeles. As Breck then did not have his own car, Mitchum lent him his
Jaguar. Mitchum introduced Breck to
Dick Powell, who contracted him to Four Star Productions, where Breck appeared in the
CBS Western
anthology series, ''
Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre''. Breck appeared with fellow guest star
Diane Brewster in the 1958 episode "The Lady Gambler" of the
ABC Western series,
Tombstone Territory, starring
Pat Conway and
Richard Eastham. That same year, Breck appeared in an episode of the syndicated
Highway Patrol, starring
Broderick Crawford. He was also cast in an episode of NBC's
The Restless Gun, starring
John Payne. He appeared in a 1958 episode of
Gunsmoke, playing the role of murder suspect, "Fly Hoyt", a cowboy working on a Texas cattle drive. That same year, Breck played the role of a bad guy in an episode of
Wagon Train, "The Story of Tobias Jones", opposite
Lou Costello. From January 1959 to May 1960, Breck starred as Clay Culhane, the gunfighter-turned-
lawyer in the ABC Western
Black Saddle, with secondary roles for
Russell Johnson,
Anna-Lisa,
J. Pat O'Malley, and
Walter Burke. Unlike in
The Big Valley, in which Breck played an easily angered rancher, he is low-key, restrained, and considerate as the lawyer Culhane. Breck was later a contract star with
Warner Bros. Television, where he appeared as Doc Holliday on
Maverick, a part that had been played twice earlier in the series by
Gerald Mohr and by
Adam West on ABC's
Lawman. Breck appeared in several other ABC/WB series of the time, such as
Cheyenne,
77 Sunset Strip,
The Roaring Twenties (as trumpet player Joe Peabody in the episode "Big Town Blues"), and
The Gallant Men. He was cast as a young
Theodore Roosevelt in the 1961 episode "The Yankee Tornado" of the ABC/WB Western series,
Bronco, starring
Ty Hardin. "The Yankee Tornado" featured
Will Hutchins of the ABC/WB Western series
Sugarfoot in a crossover appearance. Breck's first starring role in a film was
Lad, A Dog (1962). The next year, he played the leading roles in both
Samuel Fuller's
Shock Corridor and the
science-fiction horror film
The Crawling Hand. He also costarred in the cavalry film
The Glory Guys. Between 1963 and 1965, Breck made three guest appearances on
Perry Mason, in the roles of Clay Eliott in the 1963 episode "The Case of the Bluffing Blast", defendant William Sherwood in the 1964 episode, "The Case of the Antic Angel", and defendant Peter Warren in the 1965 episode, "The Case of the Gambling Lady". During this time, he appeared on episodes of such television series as
Mr. Novak,
The Outer Limits,
Bonanza and
The Virginian. Breck claimed to have been considered for leads on two successful television series produced by
Quinn Martin:
The Fugitive (1963) and ''
12 O'Clock High'' (1964), with Breck commenting, "If you are a leading man in Hollywood, you either draw $250,000 like Steve McQueen or you had better be in a series."
The Big Valley From 1965 to 1969, Breck starred on
The Big Valley as Nick Barkley, foreman of the Barkley ranch and son to Barbara Stanwyck's character, Victoria Barkley. The second of four children, Nick was hot-headed, short-tempered, and very fast with a gun. Always spoiling for a fight and frequently wearing leather gloves, Breck's character took the slightest offense to the Barkley name personally and quickly made his displeasure known, as often with his fists as with his vociferous shouts. Often, this proved to be a mistake, and only through the calming influence of his mother and cooler-headed siblings, Jarrod (
Richard Long), half-brother Heath (
Lee Majors), sister Audra (
Linda Evans), and Eugene (
Charles Briles; written out after season one when he was drafted into the Army), would a difficult situation be rectified. Having been a
Barbara Stanwyck admirer since the 1940s, when he was a teenager, Breck developed an on- and off-screen chemistry with her, practicing longer lines and even being a ranch foreman on the set. After the series was cancelled, he stayed close to her until her death.
After The Big Valley In 1970 he appeared as Lafe Harkness on the TV Western
The Men from Shiloh (rebranded name for
The Virginian) in the episode titled "Hannah". Most of his roles in the 1970s and 1980s were television guest-starring performances on such series as
Alias Smith and Jones,
Mission: Impossible,
McMillan & Wife,
S.W.A.T.,
The Six Million Dollar Man (again with Lee Majors),
The Incredible Hulk, and
The Dukes of Hazzard, as well as roles as himself on
Fantasy Island, and
The Fall Guy which also starred former television "brother" Lee Majors. In the mid-1980s, Breck moved to
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with his wife Diane and their son, Christopher. He was asked by a casting director to teach a weekly class to young actors on film technique. That once-a-week class became a full-time acting school - The Breck Academy - which he operated for 10 years. In 1990, Breck appeared in the Canadian cult film
Terminal City Ricochet. On January 20, 1990, while teaching at the drama school, Breck was notified of Barbara Stanwyck's death. She requested no funeral nor memorial. In 1991, he appeared as Sham-Ir, the chief of all genies, in the NBC television special
I Still Dream of Jeannie, the second reunion film that reunited
I Dream of Jeannie TV series co-stars
Barbara Eden and
Bill Daily, along with
Al Waxman and
Ken Kercheval. In the film
The Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter (1993), Breck played Sheriff Hatch. In 1996, he appeared in an episode of the new version of
The Outer Limits. Breck provided the voice of Farmer Brown in "Critters", a 1998 episode of
The New Batman Adventures. His last television performance was on an episode of
John Doe in 2002. Prior to his death, most of his film performances have been in undistributed films that are shown only at
film festivals. ==Personal life==