Richard Boone

 By 1971, Richard Boone tired of living in Hawaii partly because ‘Hawaii 5-0’ was picked up over his own “Kona Coast’ for a TV series, and he couldn’t find traction for a motion picture studio based on the Island. To the amazement of his wife Claire, they moved to her hometown and a modest life in St Augustine FL, their son Peter was enrolled at Stanford, on the west coast.

He became active in local theater productions, furthered his interest in art, and even took up teaching at Flagler College, a beautiful small private liberal arts school centered around the old Ponce de León Hotel, built in 1888 as a luxury hotel. Boone taught during the 1973 academic year.

During this time, he was also returning to Hollywood. His roles became grittier as he aged, and he always looked older than his age. On one trip to L.A. he met with young producers who had never heard of him. It devastated him. Still, there was Against A Crooked Sky (1975), The Shootist (1976), God’s Gun (1976), and The Big Sleep (1976).

He made a new but short-lived western series, Hec Ramsey (1972), set in 1901, as a former gunfighter turned lawman, with a keen interest in the emerging field of forensics. The show was cancelled greatly in part by his falling out with Jack Webb.

A cancerous spot was found inside his mouth in May 1980. It metastasized, and he refused chemo. He weighed less than one hundred pounds near the end. He died on January 10, 1981, his last words were to Claire, “I know you: I like you.”