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When people ask me where I received my education, I tell them it was at MGM-U. The biggest lessons I learned is that acting is a talent. You can't teach it. And even if you have the talent you have to get a part.
Richard Anderson
Richard Anderson is one of the very few actors to play the same regular character on two different series simultaneously. From 1976 to 1978, he played Oscar Goldman on both "The Six Million Dollar Man" (1974) and "The Bionic Woman" (1976). Leo G. Carroll, Martin E. Brooks, David Hasselhoff and Fred Dalton Thompson are among the other actors to have done this.
Richard Anderson
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Richard Norman Anderson
8 August 1926, Long Branch, New Jersey
Richard Norman Anderson (born August 8, 1926) is an American actor in film and television.
Anderson was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, the son of Olga (née Lurie) and Harry Anderson. He is probably best known for his role as Steve Austin's (Lee Majors) and Jaime Sommers' (Lindsay Wagner) boss, Oscar Goldman, in both The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman TV series and their three subsequent TV movies.
On the big screen, his many films included the science-fiction classic Forbidden Planet and the gripping World War I drama Paths of Glory directed by Stanley Kubrick, in which Anderson played the prosecuting attorney. He was the object of the unrequited love of Clara Varner (Joanne Woodward) in 1958's The Long, Hot Summer and a suspicious military officer in the 1964 drama Seven Days in May.
The 1960s found Anderson making appearances in Perry Mason (in 22 episodes as police lieutenant Steve Drumm, replacing the character of Lt. Tragg), The Untouchables, The Rifleman, Death Valley Days, The Eleventh Hour, I Spy, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Fugitive, Bonanza, The Invaders, and The Big Valley, among others. In 1961-1962, Anderson co-starred with Marilyn Maxwell in an ABC production of Bus Stop, a drama about travelers passing through a bus depot and diner in the fictitious town of Sunrise, Colorado.
In addition to his appearances on The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman in the 1970s, Anderson also guest starred on Hawaii Five-O, Gunsmoke, Ironside, Columbo and The Love Boat. Anderson was just as busy in the 1980s on Charlie's Angels, Knight Rider, Remington Steele, Cover Up, The A-Team, The Fall Guy, Simon & Simon, and Murder, She Wrote. Anderson also had a recurring role as Senator Buck Fallmont on Dynasty from 1986-1987.
In the 1990s, Anderson served as narrator of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. He also served as a commercial spokesperson for the Shell Oil Company in the United States known as the "The Shell Answer Man". Created by the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, "The Shell Answer Man" appeared in commercials from 1976 to 1982.
His first wife was the daughter of Alan Ladd.
His second wife was the daughter of Norma Shearer and Irving Thalberg.
In "The Six Million Dollar Man" (1974), Richard's character worked for a government department called the OSI. In real life, he did an orientation video for a real government department called the OSI, which was very different from the fictional one.
In July 2005, appeared as a guest at the Western Film Fair in Charlotte, North Carolina along with Ty Hardin, Henry Darrow, Donna Douglas, Elena Verdugo, Jo Morrow, Ed Nelson and Lorna Gray.
Is a spokesperson for the Kiplinger Newsletter and The Fragile X Foundation and serves on the Board of Directors of Veteran's Park.
Studied at the Actors Laboratory in Los Angeles, which later became the Actors Studio in New York.
Influenced to become an actor after seeing Gary Cooper on the screen, his initial screen test for MGM was from Cooper's The Cowboy and the Lady (1938). He later had the privilege of meeting the star.
He had three daughters, Ashley (b. circa 1962), Brooke (b. circa 1964), and Deva (b. circa 1966).
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