John Beradino

John Beradino
as Steve Hardy in General Hospital, 1964.
Born	Giovanni Berardino (1917-05-01)May 1, 1917 Los Angeles, U.S.
Died	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actor, baseball player
Years active	1948-1993
Known for	General Hospital television series
Spouse(s)	Jeanette Nadine Barritt (1941-1963) (divorced) (2 children) Marjorie Binder (1971-1996) (his death) (2 children)
Children	Toni and Cindy Katherine Ann and John Anthony

Johnny Berardino
Second baseman / Shortstop
Batted: Right Threw: Right
MLB debut
April 22, 1939, for the St. Louis Browns
Last MLB appearance
September 19, 1952, for the Pittsburgh Pirates
MLB statistics
Batting average	.249
Home runs	36
Runs batted in	387
Teams
St. Louis Browns (1939–1942, 1946–1947) Cleveland Indians (1948–1950) Pittsburgh Pirates (1950) St. Louis Browns (1951) Cleveland Indians (1952) Pittsburgh Pirates (1952)

John Beradino (May 1, 1917 – May 19, 1996) 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.

Early life and education

John and Marjorie Beradino, 1971.

He was born Giovanni Berardino in Los Angeles. He attended Belmont High School, located in downtown Los Angeles.

Beradino is often mentioned as having appeared in the silent Our Gang comedies produced by Hal Roach as a child actor but has not been identified as having appeared in any of the existing films.

Baseball career

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 second baseman and shortstop for the St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians, and Pittsburgh Pirates, winning the World Series with the Indians in 1948. 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 thriller Suddenly, starring Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden, and later performed as a policeman who allows Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) 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 1955 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" (both 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.

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 LAPD Sergeant Vince Cavelli in The New Breed, he was offered the role of Dr. Steve Hardy on the soap opera General Hospital. He also played a version of his General Hospital character on an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. He played Hardy from General Hospital's inception in 1963 until becoming ill from pancreatic cancer in 1996. Beradino died on Sunday, May 19, 1996 in Los Angeles.

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 (1948) and have his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1993).

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 (leaving Ames with a new solo image), an "action" clip of Beradino's Steve Hardy in the hospital remained in the sequence until the sequence's 2004 retirement.

External links

• John Beradino at the Internet Movie Database
• John Beradino at AllMovie
• Career statistics and player information from Baseball Reference
• The Virtual Card Collection – Johnny Berardino, 1952 Topps Card # 252
• The Deadball Era
• John Beradino at Find a Grave