Congenial, mild-mannered Dick Sargent was a reliably bemused foil on film and TV for nearly four decades. He was born Richard Cox on April 19, 1930 in Carmel, California. His mother, Ruth McNaughton, was a minor actress who went by the stage name of Ruth Powell; his father, Colonel Elmer Cox, served in WWI and later became a business manager to such Hollywood alumni as Douglas Fairbanks and Erich von Stroheim. Dick attended the San Rafael Military Academy in Menlo Park, California before majoring in drama at Stanford University.
