Randy Boone, the actor and musician who portrayed the guitar-playing ranch hand Randy Benton on the long-running NBC western series “The Virginian,” died on Thursday, August 28, 2025. He was 83 years old.
Boone’s wife, Lana, confirmed his death to The Hollywood Reporter but declined to provide additional details about the circumstances.
Born Clyde Randy Boone on January 17, 1942, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the actor joined the cast of “The Virginian” midway through its second season in February 1964. He remained with the series for 46 episodes through the end of the fourth season in April 1966, starring alongside James Drury and Doug McClure.
Boone was known for riding his own horse, named Clyde, on the show and for performing original songs that he wrote himself. He indicated that he wanted to feel like he was putting something special into his work through his musical contributions. The actor signed away the rights to his songs but later received royalties, which surprised and pleased him.
His horse Clyde was not a Hollywood-trained animal, and Boone noted that the horse acted very much like a real horse and didn’t stand still, which generated considerable fan mail from viewers who appreciated the authenticity. Boone allowed Universal Studios to use his horse for free in exchange for boarding the animal at the studio.
Boone graduated from Fayetteville Senior High School in 1960 and briefly attended North Carolina State College in Raleigh, where he played guitar at house parties and rarely attended classes. He described his plan to hitchhike around the country with his guitar and have fun before being drafted into the Army.
After traveling for 18 months, Boone ended up in Los Angeles in 1962. When someone he was playing music with told him a television producer was looking for a young man to play a folk-singing college student, he auditioned and was hired for the NBC series “It’s a Man’s World.”
On “It’s a Man’s World,” which aired from 1962 to 1963, Boone portrayed Vern Hodges, a character who shared a houseboat on the Ohio River with two friends played by Glenn Corbett and Ted Bessell. The critically acclaimed show was canceled after just four months due to tough competition. Boone and Bessell went on a barnstorming campaign across the country to try to save the series, but their efforts were unsuccessful.
Following the cancellation, Boone was advised that knowing how to ride a horse would be valuable in the era of television westerns, so he purchased Clyde and became an expert rider. This skill, combined with his existing contract with Universal Studios, led producer Frank Price to cast him in “The Virginian.”
Boone’s character was introduced to viewers in the episode “First to Thine Own Self,” which premiered in February 1964. His character, a drifter, finds a home at Shiloh ranch and forms a friendship with Betsy Garth, played by Roberta Shore. He was let go from the show after the fourth season, with producer Frank Price reportedly viewing him as window dressing who wasn’t needed on the series.
Boone felt he was needed as much as anybody on the show and believed that programs suffer when significant changes are made and actors who helped audiences fall in love with the show are lost. He and Shore were featured on a 1965 Decca album titled “The Singing Stars of The Virginian,” and he followed with a solo effort called “Ramblin Randy.”
After leaving “The Virginian,” Boone appeared as deputy U.S. marshal and aspiring reporter Francis Wilde on the CBS western “Cimarron Strip,” which starred Stuart Whitman and aired for one season from 1967 to 1968. He also had a memorable role in the 1963 “Twilight Zone” episode “The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms,” where he portrayed one of three National Guardsmen, alongside Warren Oates and Ron Foster, who are transported back in time to participate in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Throughout his career, Boone made guest appearances on numerous television series including “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,” “Wagon Train,” “Bonanza,” “The Fugitive,” “Combat!,” “Hondo,” “Emergency!,” “Kolchak: The Night Stalker,” “Kung Fu,” “Gunsmoke” and “Highway to Heaven.” His film credits included “Country Boy” (1966), “Terminal Island” (1973), “Dr. Minx” (1975) and “The Wild Pair” (1987).
Boone left acting in the late 1980s and transitioned to working in construction. Friends remembered him as humble and soft-spoken, with one friend noting that he maintained the same country boy look and charisma decades after his television career. Boone said, “I wanted to feel like I’m putting something special into the work.”