Nicholas King (March 21, 1933 – April 3, 2012) was an American actor and horticulturist who was instrumental in preserving the

Watts Towers The Watts Towers, Towers of Simon Rodia, or ''Nuestro Pueblo'' ("our town" in Spanish) are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural towers, architectural structures, and individual sculptural features and mosaics within the site of the artis ...

. Robert Nicholas King was born in

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...

. After graduating from high school in 1951, King began taking acting lessons at the

Pasadena Playhouse The Pasadena Playhouse is a historic performing arts venue located 39 S. El Molino Avenue in Pasadena, California, United States. The 686-seat auditorium produces a variety of cultural and artistic events, professional shows, and community engag ...

.McLellan, Dennis. (2012, April 23). ''Nicholas King dies at 79; actor helped preserve the Watts Towers''. The Los Angeles Times.
/ref> King had uncredited roles in ''

The Long, Hot Summer ''The Long, Hot Summer'' is a 1958 American drama film directed by Martin Ritt. The screenplay was written by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., based in part on three works by William Faulkner: the 1931 novella "Spotted Horses", the 1939 s ...

'' and as a medic in ''

The Young Lions ''The Young Lions'' (1948) is a novel by Irwin Shaw about three soldiers in World War II. Plot Christian Diestl is at first a sympathetic Austrian drawn to Nazism by despair for his future but willing to sacrifice Jews if necessary. Noah Ack ...

''. He had the role of Arnie in 1958's '' Joy Ride'' and Georgie in '' The Threat''.Nicholas King in the Internet Movie Database
/ref> He also had a recurring role in the television version of the

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ...

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

One Man's Family ''One Man's Family'' is an American radio soap opera, heard for almost three decades, from 1932 to 1959. Created by Carlton E. Morse, it was the longest-running uninterrupted dramatic serial in the history of American radio. Television versions ...

''. In 1969 King returned to Northern California, where he became a partner in a land cooperative on the Garcia River in

Point Arena Point Arena, formerly known as Punta Arena (Spanish for "Sandy Point") is a small coastal city in Mendocino County, California, United States. Point Arena is located west of Hopland, at an elevation of . The population was 460 at the 2020 cens ...

. He opened a nursery and began grafting varieties of apple trees. King died in a

Santa Rosa, California Santa Rosa ( Spanish for " Saint Rose") is a city and the county seat of Sonoma County, in the North Bay region of the Bay Area in California. Its estimated 2019 population was 178,127. It is the largest city in California's Wine Country and ...

nursing home. He had battled

Lewy body dementia Lewy body dementias are two similar and common subtypes of dementia—dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD). Both are characterized by changes in thinking, movement, behavior, and mood. The two conditions have si ...

for several years prior to his death.

Watts Towers preservation

In the late 1950s, King was working as an assistant to Hollywood photographer

Bob Willoughby Robert Hanley "Bob" Willoughby (June 30, 1927 – 18 December 2009) was an American photographer. ''Popular Photography'' called him "The man who virtually invented the photojournalistic motion picture still." Biography Willoughby was born in ...

. King was present when Willoughby's friend, film editor William Cartwright, told the photographer about first seeing the towers and wondering why they had been abandoned. King expressed an interest in working with Cartwright to save the towers, and the two men traced ownership to Joseph Montoya, an employee of a local dairy. King and Cartwright arranged a meeting with Montoya and asked if he would be interested in selling the towers. Montoya said "yes" and set a price of $3,000. "We wrote out a $20 check for the deposit right there, and we walked out of that building 15 feet off the ground. We couldn't get over it — we owned those damned things," King told ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...

'' in a 1965 interview. "Nick ... understood the international merit of the towers," said Jeanne Morgan, a charter member of the Committee for

Simon Rodia The Watts Towers, Towers of Simon Rodia, or ''Nuestro Pueblo'' ("our town" in Spanish) are a collection of 17 interconnected sculptural towers, architectural structures, and individual sculptural features and mosaics within the site of the arti ...

's Towers in Watts. "Without his participation, the towers would have been destroyed" under a demolition order issued by the City of Los Angeles after they had been declared a potential safety hazard.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:King, Nicholas Deaths from Lewy body dementia Deaths from dementia in California Male actors from Sacramento, California 1933 births 2012 deaths 20th-century American male actors