Celebrity Biographies
Richard Venture
He played Al Pacino’s brother in “Essence of a Woman” and participated in numerous films. The prolific secondary Richard Venture passed away at the age of 94 on December 19, 2017, as announced by Rebecca, his daughter.
Born on November 11, 1923 in New York, Richard Charles Venturella (his real name) enlisted in the United States Navy, serving in the South Pacific on an aircraft carrier, during World War II. Back home he made his Broadway debut in the 1951 play “Dinosaur Wharf.”
After various roles in successful television series, he made his film debut in 1972 with The Effect of Gamma Rays on Daisies , directed by Paul Newman , where he played an alcoholic. During the following four decades he lavished himself on titles such as All the President’s Men , where he was assistant editor of The Washington Post newspaper, The Field of Onions , where he gave life to a detective, or Welcome, Mr. Chance , in which he played to a driver
Movie fans will remember him above all as a suicide cop, in Hunter for Hire , the American ambassador in Disappeared , a colonel in The Iron Sergeant , or Al Pacino ‘s brother in Essence of a Woman , where he excelled in the awkward sequence of the Thanksgiving dinner. He retired in 2001, after the unknown comedy Series 7 .
Divorced from the interpreter Grayce Grant, with whom he had his four offspring, over time he was together with fellow actresses Olivia Cole , Lorraine O’Donnell and Katherine Venture, who survives him.