Richard Anderson (1926-2017)

"We can rebuild him.

We have the technology.

We can make him better than he was.

Better, stronger, faster."

 

-Richard Anderson handling the opening narration to The Six Million Dollar Man-

There may have been a reason we always knew and loved the actor from Stargate SG-1 as Richard Dean Anderson, emphasis on Dean. For before that man there was another impressive acting force that lent his thespian prowess to a number of genre offerings and his name too was Richard Anderson.



He was Richard Norman Anderson (1926-2017) to be precise.

Anderson  will always be best remembered as the steadying hand and guiding force for good, Oscar Goldman, behind Steve Austin (The Bionic Man) or The Six Million Dollar Man (1973-1978) for five seasons and even Jamie Sommers (1976-1978) as The Bionic Woman for three seasons.



As Oscar Goldman he was the head of the OSI, Office of Scientific Intelligence. He was a key, integral component of both series' successes. You will find a terrific clip of an early performance by Anderson here in the 2nd Pilot coverage of The Six Million Dollar Man: Wine, Women And War.

Indeed Anderson's career was plentiful and vast even appearing in Stanley Kubrick's Paths Of Glory (1957), Gettysburg (1993) as well as the science fiction classic Forbidden Planet (1956).



In television he even made appearances in such genre series as Knight Rider, Charlie's Angels, The A-Team, The Fall Guy and in the Kolchak film The Night Strangler (1973). And of course, you know you are somebody when you have guested on The Love Boat.

Another adored great from the pantheon of childhood classics leaves us. Anderson was truly a youthful looking 91.