Richard Hill

Film career Hill's acting break came when he was scouted at a Los Angeles beach and offered the small part of a lifeguard in a production called One of a Kind. Hill was able to capitalize on his athletic background to keep his career going: he played a college football star (albeit from Michigan) in Detour to Terror, an NBC telefilm starring and produced by O.J. Simpson, and had a recurring role as another football player on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives. He also guest-starred as a varsity football player on an episode of Charlie's Angels, another Spelling production. In 1981, he was cast in Today's FBI, a re-imagining of classic show The FBI, which ran for a single season on ABC.

In 1983, Hill made his theatrical debut in Deathstalker, which was part of a wave of heroic fantasy films that followed Conan The Barbarian in its wake. The film was profitable for Roger Corman's New World Pictures, and Hill subsequently starred in several action films for Corman (including the third Deathstalker sequel) and his associate Cirio Santiago. Hill also appeared in Warrior Queen, a film aping the Deathstalker template but made by another exploitation producer, Harry Alan Towers. In 1994, he played a secondary protagonist in the final installment of the Class of... series, Class of 1999 II. Around the same time, the actor made another push for a leading role with Immortal Soldier, an android film which he co-wrote and was to feature genre veterans Maria Conchita Alonso, Jeff Wincott, Robert Davi, Michael Ironside and Louise Fletcher. However the project, promoted by upstart Hatch Entertainment, did not materialize.

In the 1980s, Hill was a member of the Hollywood All-Stars, a touring celebrity softball team raising money for various charitable causes.

Writing career Early in his entertainment career, Hill expressed an interest in writing, and was working on a spec script based on his college recruiting experience. a fellow Ohioan with whom Hill had become acquainted at a 1986 celebrity softball game. While neither film projects panned out, Rose read the Eisenreich script and chose Hill to write a book about his life. In the resulting opus, My Prison Without Bars, Rose admitted to betting on MLB games for the first time, an accusation he had steadfastly denied before.

In 2023, Hill published another biography, dedicated to humanitarian doctor and fellow Georgia Tech graduate G.B. Espy. Hill met Espy during a public speaking engagement, and the idea of the book was suggested to him by former Tech basketball player Roger Kaiser, an admirer of the doctor's career.

Selected filmography Note: This Rick Hill is not to be confused with several homonyms, including an Australian actor and a kickboxer who appeared in Bloodfist II for his frequent employer Roger Corman. Film

Television