Biography
John Robert Anderson (October 20, 1922 – August 7, 1992) A tall, sinewy, austere-looking character actor with silver hair, rugged features and a distinctive voice, John Robert Anderson appeared in hundreds of films and television episodes. Immensely versatile, he was at his best submerging himself in the role of historical figures (he impersonated Abraham Lincoln three times and twice baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, men whom he strongly resembled). He was a familiar presence...
Known For
Complete Filmography

John, 316
2021
Story Editor
A psychiatric hospital is turned upside down when a mysterious drifter is admitted and assigned to room 316. Known only as John Doe, the other patient...

Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone
1994
as Virgil Earp (flashback sequence) (archive footage)
Combining colorized footage from the television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955) with new scenes shot in Tombstone, Arizona, this film ...

24 Hour Psycho
1993
as California Charlie (archive footage)
24 Hour Psycho is the title of an art installation created by artist Douglas Gordon in 1993. The work consists entirely of an appropriation of Alfred ...

Bed of Lies
1992
as Price Daniel, Sr.
Dramatization of the true-life story of a woman who fights for custody of her children while awaiting trial for the murder of her husband, who happens...

Daddy
1991
as George Watson
Oliver Watson has never been luckier: he is a successful advertising executive, shares a marriage of eighteen years with Sarah and has three loving ki...

Babe Ruth
1991
as Judge Landis
A film based on the home-run legend's life.

In Broad Daylight
1991
as Wes Westerman
The fanatically uncompromising Len Rowan and his family insult and terrorize the citizens of a small town for years. One day the comment of a saleswom...

Follow Your Heart
1990
as Josh Lowe
An ex-marine, in search of some defining life direction, unexpectedly faces a hurdle when his jeep breaks down in a sparsely populated Wyoming town. W...

Deadly Innocents
1989
as Gus
Angela is a sensitive teenager and her fanatically religious father has forced her to dress and work like a boy in his gas station. When Beth, who has...

Full Exposure: The Sex Tapes Scandal
1989
as George Dutton
A high-priced call girl who has been secretly videotaping her rich clients is shot to death. An investigation of her murder ensues, bringing those inv...

Eight Men Out
1988
as Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis
Buck Weaver and Hap Felsch are young idealistic players on the Chicago White Sox, a pennant-winning team owned by Charles Comiskey - a penny-pinching...

American Harvest
1987
as Judge Meriweather
American Harvest is set in the heartland of Kansas. Two proud, stubborn families have not spoken to one another because of an incident in the distant ...

Scorpion
1986
as Noel G. Koch
A top counter-intelligence agent thwarts a hijacking and is assigned to protect one of the terrorists who plan to turn evidence over for a plea bargai...

Never Too Young to Die
1986
as Arliss
Secret agent Drew Stargrove is brutally murdered by the ruthless hermaphrodite gang leader Velvet Von Ragnar. The murdered secret agent's son, Lance S...

I-Man
1986
as Holbrook
When a man is exposed to an alien gas, he acquires the ability to heal instantly and survive any injury or toxin.

Sins of the Past
1984
as Rev. Donald Randolph
A ring of call girls leaves the "business" when one of them is murdered. The survivors change their names and leave town. However, they are reunited 1...

Missing Children: A Mother's Story
1982
as Stanley Willard
A young mother hands her children into what she thinks is a childcare center while she finds a new home, but returns to find that they have been adopt...

The First Time
1982
as Paul Cooper
An emotionally troubled teenage girl drops out of high school and travels with her boyfriend to San Diego, while the girl's mother enlists the help of...

Zoot Suit
1981
as Judge F.W. Charles
Part fact and part fiction, Zoot Suit is the film version of Luis Valdez's critically acclaimed play, based on the actual Sleepy Lagoon murder case an...

Out of the Blue
1981
as T.V. Interviewer
A young girl whose father is an ex-convict and whose mother is a junkie finds it difficult to conform and tries to find comfort in a quirky combinatio...

Smokey and the Bandit II
1980
as Governor
The Bandit goes on another cross-country run, transporting an elephant from Florida to Texas. And, once again, Sheriff Buford T. Justice is on his tai...
In Search of Historic Jesus
1979
as Caiaphas
Re-created Biblical tableaux mixed with interviews.

The Deerslayer
1978
as Hutter
Frontiersman Hawkeye and his blood brother Chingachgook attempt to rescue the daughter of a chief who was captured by raiders from a rival tribe in th...

Donner Pass: The Road to Survival
1978
as Patrick Breen
A grim incident from American pioneer history is recreated as a determined group of settlers, facing almost insurmountable odds, struggles to reach Ca...

The Last Hurrah
1977
as Amos Force
The longtime head of a powerful political machine is determined to win a fourth election and stay in power, despite challenges to his regime by young,...

Peter Lundy and the Medicine Hat Stallion
1977
as Alexander Majors
A teenage boy gets a job as a Pony Express rider in the Nebraska Territory not long before the Civil War breaks out.

The Lincoln Conspiracy
1977
as Abraham Lincoln
Speculative hokum about John Wilkes Booth, murderer of Abraham Lincoln, escaped to Canada instead of being tracked down and killed soon after the assa...

The Force of Evil
1977
as Sheriff John Carrington
A murderer on parole victimizes a family against whom he holds a grudge.

Bridger
1976
as President Andrew Jackson
The story of famous frontiersman Jim Bridger, who is given 40 days to cut a trail through the Rocky Mountains to the California coast and told that if...

The Dark Side of Innocence
1976
as Stephen Hancock
A suburban housewife's feeling that her life is standing still causes her to divorce her husband. This causes tension with her daughter, who bitterly ...

The Quest
1976
as Army Officer
Eight years ago, Cheyenne Indians attacked the Baudine Family wagon and captured Morgan, whom they renamed Two Persons. Now Two Persons, raised in the...

The Specialist
1975
as Pike Smith
Jerry Bounds, an upright lawyer, must stand up against Pike Smith and his the water company's efforts to exploit a local lake.

Dead Man on the Run
1975
as Jason Monroe
A government agent who is investigating a colleague's murder discovers a conspiracy to cover up a political assassination.

The Dove
1974
as Mike Turk
16-year-old Robin Lee Graham aims to become the youngest person to sail around the world in a 23-foot sloop named "The Dove". On his journey, he meets...

Manhunter
1974
as Aaron Denver
Pilot movie for the short-lived TV series set in the 1930's about a World War I ex-marine-turned-bounty-hunter, named Dave Barrett, who goes after two...

Smile Jenny, You're Dead
1974
as Col. John Lockport
David Janssen (The Fugitive) portrays dogged detective Harry in the telefilm that was the second of two pilots preceding his memorable Harry O series....

Heatwave!
1974
as Toler
A devastating heatwave hits the Los Angeles area and a young expecting couple try to evade it by escaping to a mountain resort town.

Executive Action
1973
as Halliday
Rogue intelligence agents, right-wing politicians, greedy capitalists, and free-lance assassins plot and carry out the JFK assassination in this specu...

Counselor at Crime
1973
as Don Vito Albanese
When the godson of San Francisco's crime lord asks permission to leave "the business," Don Antonio agrees, but reluctantly. Such behavior by either on...

Call to Danger
1973
as Edward McClure
A federal agent recruits a computer whiz to try to free a Mafia witness who has been kidnapped and held in a heavily fortified compound.
Set This Town on Fire
1973
as Henry Kealey
After serving seven years in prison for manslaughter, a man returns to his hometown to find that the eyewitness whose testimony convicted him has seco...

Molly and Lawless John
1972
as Sheriff Marvin Parker
Molly, the shy, romance-starved wife of an arrogant frontier sheriff, finds herself drawn to a prisoner in her husband's jail. This prisoner, a handso...

The Stepmother
1972
as Inspector Darnezi
Returning home from a business trip, an architect assumes that a client is having an affair with his wife and murders the man. His feelings of guilt a...

Man and Boy
1971
as Stretch
At the beginning of the 19th century a man and his son settle in Arizona which used to be a frontier state and full of criminals at that time.

Hitched
1971
as Jomer Cruett
The adventures of a newly married teenage couple in the Old West.

Soldier Blue
1970
as Col. Iverson
After a cavalry group is massacred by the Cheyenne, only two survivors remain: Honus, a naive private devoted to his duty, and Cresta, a young woman w...

Cotton Comes to Harlem
1970
as Capt. Bryce
Harlem's African-American population is being ripped off by the Rev. Deke O'Malley, who dishonestly claims that small donations will secure parcels of...

The Andersonville Trial
1970
as Ambrose Spencer
A dramatization of the 1865 war-crimes trial of Henry Wirz, commandant of the notorious Confederate POW camp at Andersonville, Georgia.

The Animals
1970
as Sheriff Allan Pierce
A woman tracks down the three men who raped her, helped by an Apache. Traveling through the Old West to her new home, young schoolteacher Alice McAndr...

Young Billy Young
1969
as Boone
A peace-loving man named Ben Kane takes a job as deputy marshal of Lords, in the old West. Kane is no lawman, but he accepts the badge because he has ...

The Great Bank Robbery
1969
as Mayor Kincaid
A motley group of phony church leaders attempts to rob a bank controlled by brothers in 1880's Texas.

Heaven with a Gun
1969
as Ase Beck
Jim Killian arrives in a small Arizona town hoping to establish a peaceful life as the local preacher, but he soon finds himself in the middle of a fe...

5 Card Stud
1968
as Marshal Dana
The players in an ongoing poker game are being mysteriously killed off, one by one.

A Man Called Gannon
1968
as Capper
A seasoned cowboy takes a young tender-foot under his wing. They become embroiled in a range war, and end up on opposite sides.

Day of the Evil Gun
1968
as Captain Jefferson Addis
Two men on a desperate search to save a woman only one of them could have!

Welcome to Hard Times
1967
as Ezra Maple / Isaac Maple
A sociopathic stranger all but destroys a small hardscrabble town but the 'mayor' convinces its survivors to stay and rebuild.

A Covenant with Death
1967
as Dietrich
An innocent man is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, but as he's about to be hanged he accidentally kills his executioner. He now faces a...

The Fortune Cookie
1966
as Abraham Lincoln (uncredited)
A cameraman is knocked over during a football game. His brother-in-law, as the king of the ambulance-chasing lawyers, starts a suit while he's still k...

Namu, the Killer Whale
1966
as Joe Clausen
Based on the amazing true story of a marine biologist (Robert Lansing) who befriends a six-ton Orcawhale, this "honest, fascinating and vigorously who...

Scalplock
1966
as Standish
This Western is a pilot for the series "The Iron Horse," in which a dapper frontier gambler wins a railroad line in a poker game and has his hands ful...

The Hallelujah Trail
1965
as Sgt. Buell
A wagon train heads for Denver with a cargo of whisky for the miners. Chaos ensues as the Temperance League, the US cavalry, the miners and the local ...

The Satan Bug
1965
as Agent Reagan
A US government germ warfare lab has had an accident. The first theory is that one of the germs has been released and killed several scientists. The b...

For the Love of Willadean
1964
as Farmer Wills
A new boy, Harley, joins a club but shows an interest in the girl on whom the club leader has a crush. The two club members trick Harley into stealing...

Ride the High Country
1962
as Elder Hammond
An ex-lawman is hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory. But what he doesn't realize is that his partner and old f...

Geronimo
1962
as Jeremiah Burns
In 1883, the Apache Indians lead by Geronimo reluctantly surrender to the attacks of American and Mexican troops, in exchange for a territory and food...

Walk on the Wild Side
1962
as Preacher
At a 1930s New Orleans bordello, Hallie is the main attraction for both clients and the shrewd madam. The arrival of Dove Linkhorn, her lovesick sweet...

The Wackiest Ship in the Army
1960
as Sailor (uncredited)
Lieutenant Rip Crandall is hoodwinked into taking command of the "Wackiest Ship in the Navy" – a real garbage scow with a crew of misfits who don't kn...

Psycho
1960
as California Charlie
When larcenous real estate clerk Marion Crane goes on the lam with a wad of cash and hopes of starting a new life, she ends up at the notorious Bates ...

Last Train from Gun Hill
1959
as Salesman
A marshal tries to bring the son of an old friend, an autocratic cattle baron, to justice for the rape and murder of his wife.

The True Story of Lynn Stuart
1958
as Doc
When the nephews of Phyllis Carter are killed in an automobile crash while under the influence of narcotics, she persuades Police Lieutenant Jim Hahan...

The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel
1951
The life and career of Erwin Rommel and his involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler.

Dick Tracy vs. Cueball
1946
Assistant Director
A police detective uses his girlfriend to track down a homicidal maniac.

Rebel Range
N/A
as Fisk Madden
A Union law allows homes vacated by confederates to be sold at auction. A woman comes back to claim her home irregardless of the fact that it is lawfu...