Richard Hatch was born on May 21, 1945 in Santa Monica, California. While in high school, he’d been aspiring to become an athlete in pole vaulting, and only had a passing interest in acting, as he considered himself too shy and insecure. The assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, while Hatch had just started college, turned him towards acting; he had been enrolled in a required oral interpretation course at the time, and following the assassination, presented an article written about Kennedy upon which he said: “As I began to read this article, I got so affected by what I was saying that I forgot myself. I was expressing feelings and emotions I tended to keep locked inside of myself.” Hatch began his theatrical career with the Los Angeles Repertory Theater, as well as shows in Chicago and Off-Broadway. Richard Hatch began working in television in 1970 when he starred as Philip Brent in the daytime soap opera All My Children, a role he played for two years. For some years, he then made guest appearances in primetime series such as Cannon, Nakia, Barnaby Jones, Hawaii Five-O, and The Waltons, as well as appearing in several made-for-TV movies such as The Hatfields and the McCoys with Jack Palance, Addie and the King of Hearts with Jason Robards, Last of the Belles with Susan Sarandon, and the 1978 TV movie Deadman’s Curve in which he portrayed Jan Berry of the musical duo Jan and Dean.

In 1976, Richard Hatch gained his first major television role as Inspector Dan Robbins on the detective series The Streets of San Francisco, a replacement for Michael Douglas (who had played Inspector Steve Keller) who had left the series that year. Though the role was only for one season, Hatch won Germany’s Bravo Youth Magazine Award for the role. Following this, he had a recurring role on the series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, also for one season. Hatch then gained a starring role in Glen A. Larson’s sci-fi series, Battlestar Galactica (1978), which aired for a single season before cancellation. Hatch was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for the role. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Hatch made guest appearances on such series as Hotel, Murder, She Wrote, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Baywatch, Dynasty, and MacGyver. In 1990, Hatch returned to daytime soap operas and appeared on Santa Barbara, originating the character Steven Slade. His next prominent role would be as Tom Zarek in the reimagined version of Battlestar Galactica, in which he made semi-regular appearances from 2004 to 2009. Richard Hatch made several low-key theatrical film releases, including Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen (1981) and Prisoners of the Lost Universe (1983). An abridged version of the pilot episode of Battlestar Galactica was released in cinemas, initially overseas and then for a limited run in the U.S., as was a sequel film, Mission Galactica: The Cylon Attack, which was also made from episodes of the series. He starred with Leif Garrett in Party Line (1988). Richard Hatch died on February 7, 2017 from pancreatic cancer under hospice care in Los Angeles, aged 71. He was survived by his brother John and his son Paul.