Richard Anderson

Career

Richard Norman Anderson, born in Long Branch, New Jersey, on August 8, 1926, and passing away on August 31, 2017, was an American actor best remembered for playing Oscar Goldman, the boss of both Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers on The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman from 1974 to 1978, as well as in later TV movies like The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman, Bionic Showdown, and Bionic Ever After?. He moved to Los Angeles as a youth and performed in high school plays before serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. After the war, he trained at the Actors' Laboratory Theatre, which led to radio and stock theater work, and in 1950 he became a contract player for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At MGM, he appeared in films such as The Magnificent Yankee as Reynolds, The Student Prince as Lucas, and Forbidden Planet as Chief Engineer Quinn.

Following six years with MGM, he signed with 20th Century Fox. One of his later film roles was the prosecuting attorney in Stanley Kubrick's World War I drama Paths of Glory, where he also worked as a dialogue coach. He recalled that Kubrick was obsessed with the visual composition of each shot, aiming for a grainy, newsreel-like look based on wartime photographs. Anderson played Ricardo Del Amo, a friend and rival of Zorro, in the second season of that series, and appeared as the object of unrequited love in The Long, Hot Summer and as a suspicious military officer in Seven Days in May.

During the 1960s, he became a regular on Perry Mason in its final season, playing Police Lieutenant Steve Drumm in 23 episodes after replacing the late Ray Collins's character. He had earlier guest-starred on the show as a defendant and another character. His television guest appearances were extensive, including Steve Canyon, The Untouchables, Wagon Train, The Rifleman, Daniel Boone, Thriller, The Eleventh Hour, Redigo, Combat!, Twelve O'Clock High, I Spy, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Fugitive, The Wild Wild West, Bonanza, The Green Hornet, The Invaders, and The Big Valley. He co-starred in the ABC series Bus Stop and played a judge in the first-season finale of Mission: Impossible.

In the 1970s, he starred as Chief George Untermeyer on Dan August and first appeared as Oscar Goldman in the second episode of The Six Million Dollar Man. He continued guest roles on shows like Hawaii Five-O, Gunsmoke, Ironside, Columbo, and The Love Boat, and played the villain in the TV movie The Night Strangler. The 1980s brought appearances on Charlie's Angels, Knight Rider, The A-Team, Murder, She Wrote, and a role as a murder suspect in the revived Perry Mason. He had a recurring part as Senator Buck Fallmont on Dynasty and portrayed President Lyndon B. Johnson in the miniseries Hoover vs. The Kennedys.

Personal life and death

In the 1990s, he narrated and guest-starred on Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, and from 1976 to 1982 he was the Shell Answer Man in commercials. Anderson married Carol Lee Ladd, then later Katharine Thalberg, with whom he had three daughters; both marriages ended in divorce. He died of natural causes in Beverly Hills at age 91. In 2007, he received a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars.

Did You Know?

• Anderson served in the United States Army during World War II.
• He was first married to Carol Lee Ladd, and later to Katharine Thalberg, daughter of movie producer Irving Thalberg and actress Norma Shearer.
• Anderson was a commercial spokesperson for the Shell Oil Company in the United States, known as the Shell Answer Man, appearing in commercials from 1976 to 1982.
• He played murder suspect Ken Braddock in the first two-hour episode of the revived Perry Mason, titled 'Perry Mason Returns' (1985).