Richard Devon wanted to be an actor from the time he was in first grade and played a small part in a school production. After finishing high school he answered a small ad in a Los Angeles newspaper for a school that offered training to the novice actor. This drama school, "Stage Eight", allowed him to work his way through, as he hadn't the money for tuition. He painted walls, built sets, waxed floors and strung lights. It was during this time that he made his first live television appearance for the experimental TV station W6XAO, atop Mt. Lee in the Hollywood Hills. Amidst much additional work in TV, Devon also played a recurring character in the kiddie-oriented teleseries Space Patrol (1950) (when Devon asked for a pay hike, his character was put into permanent suspended animation). He made his first film in the early '50s.