Richard Davalos, East of Eden Actor, Dies at 85

 Posted on January 7, 2024  |  4 minutes  |  679 words  |  Aldo Pusey

Actor Richard Davalos, who played James Dean’s brother Aron in Elia Kazan’s 1955 film “East of Eden,” died Tuesday at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Calif. He was 85.

Davalos approached stardom in the ’50s and ’60s with roles in “East of Eden” and as convict Blind Dick in 1967 classic “Cool Hand Luke,” starring Paul Newman. While working on “East of Eden,” Davalos and Dean roomed together in a Burbank apartment. His other credits include “I Died a Thousand Times” (1955), “All the Young Men” (1960), “The Cabinet of Caligari” (1962), “Pit Stop” (1969), “Kelly’s Heroes” (1970), “Brother, Cry for Me” (also 1970), “Hot Stuff” (1979), “Death Hunt” (1981), “Something Wicked This Way Comes” (1983) and his final screen credit, 2008’s “Ninja Cheerleaders.”

The actor also had an active career in television. He starred with Darryl Hickman in NBC’s brief series “The Americans” in 1961 and guested on shows including “Bonanza,” “Hawaiian Eye,” “77 Sunset Strip,” “Perry Mason,” “Rawhide,” “Mannix,” “SWAT,” “The Rockford Files,” “Hawaii Five-O,” “The Jeffersons,” “Hart to Hart” and “Murder, She Wrote.”

In the ’90s, Davalos gained a measure of pop music fame by appearing on the covers of multiple albums for the Smiths. He appears in the album art for “Strangeways,” “Here We Come,” “Best…I” and “…Best II.”

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He was the father of actress Elyssa Davalos and musician Dominique Davalos and the grandfather of actress Alexa Davalos, who stars on Amazon’s “The Man in the High Castle.”

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