Peter Breck, who was best known for his role as Nick Barkley on the 1960s TV series The Big Valley, has died at age 82, Yahoo reports. He guest starred on nearly every western series of the '50s and '60s, but film fans will also remember him from his starring role in Samuel Fuller's 1963 thriller Shock Corridor.
Before landing The Big Valley (which ran from 1965-1969), Breck made a number of films, including uncredited parts opposite Robert Mitchum in Thunder Road and Susan Hayward in I Want to Live! In his rare starring role in Shock Corridor, Breck played a journalist who goes undercover as a patient in a mental institution to uncover a murder plot, and who gradually loses his mind.
Tim Hunter writes of the film, "Here is an honest, visionary, pulp film, stripped of all romanticism, with characterizations and themes more real and relevant today than ever. To watch Shock Corridor now is to experience the complex, wacky, full-blown masterpiece of one of Hollywood’s great originals, Samuel Fuller... In Breck’s moving performance, Johnny becomes one of the great doomed figures of modern day film noir — unwittingly pursuing a killer at the expense of his own sanity."
Breck also played the doctor in the 1974 classic family movie Benji and continued acting until recently. His last screen credit is for 2004's Jiminy Glick in Lalawood
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