Trivia

His career faded as alcoholic problems grew and he died of related medical issues in 1969 at the untimely age of 41.

In 1952, while working in the play "Dark of the Moon" at the Players' Ring Theatre in Hollywood, he met actress Beverly Garland and in August of that year married her. They divorced in 1956. Coincidentally, the following year Beverly's sci-fi film Pas de cette Terre (1957) was co-billed and released with Richard's sci-fi film Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957).

His body was donated as a medical specimen to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California.