page_title: The Fugitive (1963 TV series)
section_title: Dr. Richard Kimble
hierarchical_section_title: The Fugitive (1963 TV series) / Cast and characters / Main characters / Dr. Richard Kimble
caption_attribution_description: Publicity photo of David Janssen as Richard Kimble and Clint Howard from the television program The Fugitive.
context_page_description: The Fugitive is an American crime drama television series created by Roy Huggins. It was produced by QM Productions and United Artists Television. It aired on ABC from September 1963 to August 1967. David Janssen starred as Dr. Richard Kimble, a physician who is wrongfully convicted of his wife's murder and sentenced to receive the death penalty. En route to death row, Dr. Richard Kimble's train derails over a switch, allowing him to escape and begin a cross-country search for the real killer, a "one-armed man". At the same time, Dr. Kimble is hounded by the authorities, most notably by Police Lieutenant Philip Gerard.
  The Fugitive aired for four seasons, and a total of 120 episodes, each 51 minutes, were produced. The first three seasons were filmed in black and white, while the final season was filmed in color.
  The Fugitive was nominated for five Emmy Awards and won the Emmy for Outstanding Dramatic Series in 1966. In 2002, it was ranked No. 36 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. TV Guide named the one-armed man No. 5 in their 2013 list of The 60 Nastiest Villains of All Time.
context_section_description: The show's lead, and the only character seen in all 120 episodes, was Dr. Richard David Kimble (David Janssen), based in part on the story of Sam Sheppard.
  Though Dr. Richard Kimble was a respected pediatrician in the fictional small town of Stafford, Indiana, it was generally known that he and his wife Helen had been having arguments prior to her death. Helen's pregnancy had ended in a stillborn birth of a son, and surgery to save her life had also rendered her infertile. The couple was devastated, but Helen refused to consider adopting children as Richard wanted. On the night of Helen's murder, the Kimbles had been heard, earlier the same day, arguing heatedly over this topic by their neighbors. Richard later went out for a drive to cool off; as he was returning home, he nearly struck with his car a man with only one arm, who was fleeing from the vicinity of the Kimble house. Richard then found that Helen had been killed. But no one had seen or heard Richard go out for his drive, or seen him while he was out, and there was no evidence that the "one-armed man" Kimble saw existed. At his trial, Kimble was unjustly convicted of Helen's murder and sentenced to death in the electric chair.
  After the train wreck and his escape from custody, Kimble moves from town to town, always trying to remain unobtrusive and unnoticed as he evades capture and hopes to find the one-armed man. He adopts many nondescript aliases, and toils at low-paying menial jobs (i.e. those that require no identification or security checks, and bring about little social attention).  In many episodes, he comes across a damsel in distress or possibly a child in danger -- he then chooses to put his anonymity at risk by aiding this deserving person. Another frequent plot device is for someone to discover Kimble's true identity and use it to manipulate him, under the threat of turning him in to the police.
  Dr. Richard Kimble is smart and resourceful, and is usually able to perform well at any job he takes. (This sometimes leads to suspicion, as his educated demeanor is often very much at odds with the menial nature of the jobs he is forced to take.)  He also displays considerable prowess in hand-to-hand combat. In the episode "Nemesis", he distracts, then knocks out, a forest ranger (played by Kurt Russell's father Bing), then quickly unloads the man's rifle to ensure he cannot shoot him if pursued. In the sixth episode, Kimble revealed that he had served as a doctor in the Korean War.
  David Janssen's understated portrayal skillfully captured the essence of Dr. Richard Kimble's plight. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama in 1965, and was nominated in 1966. He was nominated three times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (1964, 1966, 1967).
caption: Janssen as Richard Kimble with Clint Howard, 1965.
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