Robert Lansing

Robert Lansing (June 5, 1928 – October 23, 1994) was an American stage, film and television actor.

Born in San Diego, California as Robert Howell Brown, he reportedly took his acting surname from the state capital of Michigan. As a young actor in New York City, he was hired to join a stock company in Michigan but was told he would first have to join Actors Equity Association. Equity would not allow him to join as "Robert Brown" since there was already another actor using that name. Since the stock company was based in Lansing, this became the actor's new surname.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1961–1962 television season, Lansing appeared as Detective Steve Carella on NBC's 87th Precinct series based on the Ed McBain detective novels. His costars were Gena Rowlands, Ron Harper, Gregory Walcott, and Norman Fell. In 1961, he played the outlaw Frank Dalton in a two-part episode of NBC's The Outlaws with Barton MacLane.

In film, Lansing starred in the late-1950s sci-fi film 4D Man (which included a young Patty Duke).

Other notable television roles include portrayals of an alcoholic college professor in ABC's drama Channing, as General George Custer on Chuck Connors's NBC series Branded, as Gil Green in the 1963 episode "Fear Begins at Forty" on the NBC medical drama The Eleventh Hour, and as intergalactic secret agent Gary Seven in a 1968 episode "Assignment: Earth" on the NBC science fiction series Star Trek. He appeared as General Frank Savage on Twelve O'Clock High with Chris Robinson and future U.S. Representative Robert K. Dornan, Peter Murphy/Mark Wainwright on The Man Who Never Was, Lt. Jack Curtis on Automan and Control on The Equalizer. He made a notable appearance on The Twilight Zone episode "The Long Morrow".

His final role was that of "Paul Blaisdell" on the series Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.

Personal life

Lansing had a son, Robert Frederick Orin Lansing, by his marriage to actress Emily McLaughlin; that marriage ended in divorce. About a year and a half later, he married Gari Hardy, but this marriage ended in divorce as well, although it produced a daughter (Alice Lucille Lansing). His last wife was Anne Pivar; they remained together until Lansing's death from lung cancer in 1994, aged 66. He was buried at Union Field Cemetery in Ridgewood, Queens.

External links

• Robert Lansing (actor) at the Internet Movie Database
• Robert Lansing at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• Robert Lansing (actor) at Find a Grave