John Beradino was an American infielder in Major League Baseball and an actor. Known as Johnny Berardino during his baseball career, he was also credited during his acting career as John Berardino, John Baradino, John Barardino or John Barradino.
After attending the University of Southern California, where he played baseball under coach Sam Barry and was member of Phi Kappa Tau fraternity, Beradino was a major league player from 1939 to 1952, except for three years of military service in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II, from 1942 to 1945. He played for the St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians, and Pittsburgh Pirates, winning the World Series with the Indians in 1948. While primarily a middle-infielder, playing second baseman or shortstop, he also played first and third base. After injuring his leg and being released by Pittsburgh in 1952, he retired from baseball and returned to acting, having appeared in his first film in 1948.
Acting career
Beradino appeared briefly in an uncredited role as a state trooper in the 1954 thrillerSuddenly, starring Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden, and later performed as a policeman who allows Roger Thornhill to make a phone call to his mother in the 1959 Hitchcock thriller, North by Northwest. Beradino had a cameo role in the 1954 sci-fi thriller Them!. He also had a guest role in a 1956 episode of the television series, Adventures of Superman titled "The Unlucky Number". He played a small-time criminal who struggled with his life-style and wanted to reform. At that point he was still being billed as "John Berardino". Beradino appeared twice on the Western series Annie Oakley, with Gail Davis—as Gorman in "Annie Rides the Navajo Trail" and as Roscoe Barnes in "Amateur Outlaw". He appeared as one of the outlaws in the opening scenes of Budd Boetticher's "Seven Men From Now," with Randolph Scott, in 1956. He guest starred as well on John Bromfield's syndicated crime drama with a modern Western setting, Sheriff of Cochise, and Bromfield's successor series, U.S. Marshal. He was also cast in an episode of David Janssen's crime drama series Richard Diamond, Private Detective. Beradino played a minor gangster in The Untouchables pilot that originally aired in Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. He then played a major recurring gangster, Augie Viale, in two episodes from the first season of The Untouchables series itself, "The Jake Lingle Killing" and "One Armed Bandits". On December 2, 1959, Beradino was cast as Al, a professional baseball player, in the episode, "The Third Strike" of the syndicated adventure series, Rescue 8, starring Jim Davis and Lang Jeffries. In the story line, the player loses consciousness when struck by a wild pitch and soon awakes with short-term amnesia. After appearing in more than a dozen B-movies, as well as supporting roles, as FBI agent Steve Daniels in the espionage series I Led Three Lives and as LAPDSergeant Vince Cavelli in Leslie Nielsen's The New Breed, he was offered the role of Dr. Steve Hardy on the soap operaGeneral Hospital. Beradino also played a version of his General Hospital character on an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Recognition
For his contribution to the television industry, Beradino has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Blvd. He has also been inducted into the University of Southern California Athletic Hall of Fame. He is the only person to have won a World Series and have his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Beradino received three Daytime Emmy Award nominations for best actor in a daytime drama. In tribute to the actor, General Hospital left Beradino's image with that of Rachel Ames in its opening sequence for a year-and-a-half after his death, through several updates. Though that image was finally removed in early 1998, an "action" clip of Beradino's Steve Hardy in the hospital remained in the sequence until the sequence's 2004 retirement.
Beradino married Jeanette Nadine Barritt in 1941 and divorced in 1963. Together they had 2 children: Toni and Cindy. He married Marjorie Binder in 1971. Together they had two children: Katherine Ann and John Anthony. He played Hardy from General Hospital inception in 1963 until becoming ill from pancreatic cancer in 1996. Beradino died on Sunday, May 19, 1996 in Los Angeles in his home. Beradino supported Barry Goldwater in the 1964 United States presidential election.
