Morgan Woodward

Morgan Woodward (born 16 September 1925 in Fort Worth, Texas) is an American actor.

He is probably best known for his recurring role in Dallas as "Punk" Anderson (an episode unveils his real name; Marvin Anderson). He also played the silent, sunglasses-wearing Boss Godfrey (the Walking Boss) in Cool Hand Luke and holds the record for Most Guest Appearances on the long-running, western TV series, Gunsmoke, with 19.

TV appearances

Woodward has many television guest appearances to his name, in shows such as:

• Gunsmoke
• Bonanza,
• Wagon Train
• Rawhide
• The Big Valley
• Branded
• The Virginian
• The High Chaparral
• Star Trek [For which he guest-starred as two different characters in two different episodes.]
• McMillan and Wife
• Kung Fu
• The Waltons
• Police Woman
• Starsky and Hutch
• The Quest
• The Incredible Hulk
• CHiPs
• Fantasy Island
• The Fall Guy
• The A-Team
• Knight Rider
• Hill Street Blues
• Matt Houston
• T.J. Hooker
• Scarecrow and Mrs. King
• Murder, She Wrote
• The X-Files
• Planet of the Apes
• Millennium
• Dukes of Hazzard [where he spoofed his character of Boss Godfrey.]

Film work

Film credits include:

• Cool Hand Luke
• The Wild Country
• The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
• Battle Beyond the Stars
• Girls Just Want to Have Fun
• The Great Locomotive Chase

Star Trek

Woodward is notable for having starred in two different episodes of the original series of Star Trek as two different characters. In the first-season episode "Dagger of the Mind" Woodward plays Dr. Simon Van Gelder, an attending physician at a hospital for the criminally insane. After discovering that the director of the facility is engaged in illegal brain experimentation, Van Gelder himself becomes a victim of these experiments and is confined as one of the patients. Escaping the facility to the orbiting USS Enterprise the deranged and incoherent (due to his brain damage) Van Gelder eventually recovers enough to be able to divulge the nefarious goings-on at the hospital. (This is with the aid of Mr. Spock's "mind meld", which is revealed for the first time in this episode.)

In the second-season episode, "The Omega Glory", Woodward portrays Captain Ron Tracey, the commander of the starship USS Exeter, a sister ship to the USS Enterprise. Convinced that he is permanently marooned on an unfamiliar planet, Tracey chooses to abandon his duty as a Star Fleet officer, and in essence he "goes native," allying himself with some of the planet's natural inhabitants in their war against their competitors. Discovered by Captain Kirk, Tracey is eventually defeated and taken into custody for his violation of fundamental orders: "The Prime Directive".

The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp

One of Woodward's longest TV roles was as the deputy/sidekick "Shotgun" Gibbs in 1955-1961 TV series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp starring Hugh O'Brian. On that series, Woodward played a tall, cantankerous, shotgun-toting backwoodsman who eventually became the trusted deputy of lawman Wyatt Earp in his days as a Kansas lawman. Though often overshadowed by the cool menace of Douglas Fowley's Doc Holliday, Woodward portrayed Gibbs as a solid, trustworthy, and more pragmatic partner to Earp, making Gibbs a character who, though ostensibly rough around the edges, would gradually come to share many of the qualities demonstrated over the years by another trusted TV deputy, Ken Curtis' world-weary Festus Haggen on Gunsmoke.

Additional Information

Woodward is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. Along with two of his four brothers, he has received recognition as a Distinguished Alumni of the University. He is also a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity.

His brother, Lee Woodward, was the weatherman with a lion puppet named "King Lionel" on the television station KOTV in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

External links

• Morgan Woodward at the Internet Movie Database
• Morgan Woodward at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Morgan Woodward: On The Horizon -- a fan site