User Profile

A tall, blond actor who has played heroes who are masculine yet soft and whose eyes express a pain yet uncovered, I used ingenuity to break into show business, sending out glossy photos of myself with my head covered as the "mystery singer." Merv Griffin took the bite and put me on his syndicated talk show, thus breaking the ice. I then made my acting debut on an episode of "Star Trek" in 1967, and from 1968-70 played Joshua Bolt, the middle brother of three who bring 100 women to Seattle in "Here Come the Brides" on ABC. In 1974, I replaced Lee Majors as the associate attorney on "Owen Marshall, Counsellor at Law" (ABC). Finally, came TV stardom, when I played Ken 'Hutch' Hutchinson on the cop drama "Starsky & Hutch" (ABC, 1975-79). I was well cast as the soft-spoken, educated cop, but was miscast as Rick (the Humphrey Bogart character) in my 1983 return to series TV, the short-lived "Casablanca" (NBC). Later that year, I was in the cast of another short-lived NBC series, the primetime serial "The Yellow Rose". I first worked in TV-movies in "The Disappearance of Flight 412" (NBC, 1974). I had my first miniseries lead with "Salem's Lot" (CBS, 1979), in which I return to my home town and find it infected by vampires and must become a vampire killer to save the community. In 1980, I played a convicted rapist who undergoes intense therapy in prison to find the root cause of my impulses in "Rage" (NBC). I also starred in Agnes Nixon's "Manions of America" miniseries for ABC in 1981, based on her Irish immigrant heritage, and have continued working in TV-movies into the 90s. I first appeared in feature films in a supporting role in "Johnny Got His Gun" (1971), and lent support to Clint Eastwood in "Magnum Force" (1973). After my TV series work waned, I returned to feature film work in the 80s in "The Hanoi Hilton" (1987), playing a gung-ho military prisoner in North Vietnam who decides he has had enough degradation and turns over in his bunk, practically willing himself to die. I co-wrote the 1994 feature "Tides of War", in which I played a Nazi trying to build a missile sight on a remote British outpost in order to attack America. I was a vengeful East German Olympics coach in "Pentathlon" (1995). Dedicated to the causes of workers, I made the documentary "Fighting Ministers" in 1986, which detailed the efforts by clergy in Pittsburgh to aid workers during a strike, leading to many arrests. I have also been a director, commencing with episodes of "Starsky & Hutch" and including episodes of other series, such as "Miami Vice" and "Hunter". I have also never abandoned the singing career which first brought me TV attention. I have performed at Radio City Music Hall in New York City as well as the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

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