After seeing Gary Cooper in a movie, Richard Anderson decided that he would like to try his hand at acting.
Born in Long Branch, New Jersey, (in baby carriage, next to brother Bob) he came west with his family at the age of ten and settled in Los Angeles. After graduating from University High School and serving in the army in World War II he studied at the Actors' Laboratory in Los Angeles, which later became the Actors Studio in New York. After a season of summer stock in Laguna Beach and Santa Barbara, he went into live television where he was spotted by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and screen tested.
Ironically he chose for his screen test a scene from Gary Cooper's "The Cowboy and the Lady. " From the test he was signed as a contract player. He gained valuable film experience working with Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, William Holden, Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon. He made twenty nine films over a six year period.
With the studio star system ending, he asked to be released from his contract in 1957 in order to appear in Stanley Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" which has since become an anti-war film classic. "I have been lucky to be invited to work in well made motion pictures," he says. "But there was also fun in making 'Curse of the Faceless Man,' a horror film now on the late night circuit." Adding it up he has has made over 40 motion pictures including -- "The Long Hot Summer" and "Compulsion" at the same time getting a taste of the "golden age of television" appearing in "Playhouse 90" with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in Irwin Shaw's "The Eighty Yard Run. "He moved on to co-star in five different network television series creating his most popular character in 1973 as Oscar Goldman, OSI Washington boss of the "Six Million Dollar Man." Out of it came "The Bionic Woman." Anderson became the first actor ever to portray the same character in two different television series running concurrently on two different networks (ABC-NBC). He was nominated for an Emmy in the 1976-1977 season.
From 1988 until 1994, Richard helped Universal Studios, CBS and NBC to make three highly rated two-hour specials, "The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman," "Bionic Showdown" (which introduced Sandra Bullock) and "Bionic Ever After."
A longtime spokesman for the highly respected Kiplinger Newsletter, he also spends a good part of his time with the California Indian Manpower Consortium to help advance education and job training for American Indians.
He is spokesperson for the National Fragile X Foundation ... Fragile X: The most common inherited cause of mental impairment, ranging from learning disabilities to retardation in children.
He also serves on the Board of Directors of Veterans Park ... a hallowed ground of the Los Angeles National Cemetary.
"I finally met Gary Cooper at a film festival in Mexico City and I asked him how he did it. 'Did what?' he said. The acting, I said. He paused, then said, 'Well, I don't know too much about that, but don't ever get caught doing it.' And I keep trying not to."
It has been said that it's flattering to an actor's vanity when he receives work . . . but the real prize is when some of his work stands the test of time.
An inveterate traveler, he enjoys trap and skeet shooting. A tennis player all his life, he hits every Saturday morning. He likes to drive his 1936 convertible Ford Phaeton and fire up his old Bentley Flying Spur.
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