Career
After spending his entire childhood as an actor, Hickman retired from entertainment to enter a monastery in 1951, only to return to Hollywood just over a year later. He continued acting, but received fewer roles than he had in the peak of his career. In 1954, he appeared as Chet Sterling in the "Annie Gets Her Man" episode of the syndicated western television series Annie Oakley, with Gail Davis. In 1957, he appeared in the episode "Copper Wire" of the syndicated western-themed crime drama Sheriff of Cochise. Later that year he appeared as murderer Steve Harris in the second Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece." Hickman appeared four times in the 1957-1958 syndicated drama series, Men of Annapolis, about midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. In 1959, Hickman appeared with his younger brother, Dwayne Hickman, on the latter's CBS-TV sitcom, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, playing his older brother, Davey. In 1959, Darryl Hickman also appeared in an episode of Wanted: Dead or Alive with Steve McQueen, titled "Rope Law"; on May 9 of that year he was a guest star on Gunsmoke as Andy Hill.
He guest-starred as Donald in the 1960 episode "Moment of Fear" of CBS's The DuPont Show with June Allyson, also featuring Edgar Bergen. He also guest starred on NBC's science fiction series The Man and the Challenge. During the Civil War Centennial, Hickman played a young Union soldier in the short-lived series The Americans (1961), and as an officer in Disney's Johnny Shiloh (1963).
He had a key role in the 1981 film Sharky's Machine, directed by and starring Burt Reynolds, as a corrupt cop. Hickman eventually became a television executive and an acting coach, as well as a voice actor for Hanna-Barbera Productions towards the end of a five-decade career in the entertainment industry. Some of his notable voiceovers were Wags in The Biskitts and Derek from The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible. His book, The Unconscious Actor: Out of Control, In Full Command, was published in April 2007.
Because of his young age at the time, Hickman is the last surviving cast member in many of the films in which he appeared.
Read more about this topic: Darryl Hickman
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