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| Robert Lansing Biographical Info | ||||
Robert Lansing was born Robert Howell Brown on June 5, 1929, in San Diego, California, and died October 23rd, 1994 in New York of the cancer he had been suffering from for some time. His career spanned more than a generation, in film, on stage, and on television. Born at the dawn of the Great Depression, Robert Lansing's early years were spent traveling around the country with his salesman father. When he was nine, he snuck under a loose flap into a visiting tent show in Texas and fell in love with the make-believe world of the theatre. Determined to become an actor, he volunteered for his grammar-school play, and immediately began driving himself with total commitment. Back in California a few years later, he kept polishing the dream, appearing in every amateur theatrical he could. He dropped out of high school to enlist in the army, served his two years, and started hitchhiking from Los Angeles to Broadway. Stopping in Fort Wayne, IN to visit an aunt, he became an actor with a local civic theatre group, a radio announcer, and a teen-age husband. Two years later, the Lansings took off for New York. Using his GI Bill benefits, Robert enrolled at the American Theatre Wing's dramatic school. These were lean years, as he struggled to make a living. He and his first wife divorced, and he married actress Emily McLaughlin (best known as nurse Jessie Brewer in General Hospital). Soon after, their fortunes changed. Cast as the psychiatrist in Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer, Robert Lansing was named one of that season's two best off-Broadway actors (the other was George C. Scott). That success led to his first Hollywood TV part in Alcoa Presents.
His first Broadway role was in 1948 in Stalag 17, and his first feature film was 1959's The 4-D Man. His career encompassed all genres, though he was well-known to science fiction fans through his appearances in cult films like Empire of the Ants, and his appearance as Gary Seven in the Star Trek episode Assignment: Earth. Lansing's television work won him critical acclaim, if not financial success. Of his role as Detective Steve Carella in the series 87th Precinct (based on the books), author Ed McBain was reported as saying, "He IS Carella." And his replacement as the lead in the series 12 O'Clock High caused a great deal of furor. TV Guide critic Cleveland Amory, who liked to refer to himself as a curmudgeon, wrote, "Make no mistake about it. Robert Lansing is magnificent." Robert Lansing's final television role was that of Police Captain Paul Blaisdell, on the series Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. Executive Producer Michael Sloan, who had been friends with Lansing since both men worked together on Sloan's series, The Equalizer, in the 80s, wrote the part expressly for Lansing, who had already been diagnosed with the cancer which would eventually kill him. Despite failing health, Lansing appeared in almost two dozen episodes during the series' first two seasons. But eventually, the strain became too much. The final episode of the second season "wrote out" the character of Blaisdell, though left the door open for his return, should Lansing's health rally. As it was, the final episode, "Retribution", filmed in February of 1994, was Lansing's final appearance. The episode aired a month after Lansing's death and was dedicated to his memory. Robert Lansing was survived by his wife, Anne, and two children from previous marriages: Robert Frederick Orin Lansing, and Alice Lucille Lansing. Biographical information obtained from "The General Died at Dusk", by Jerry D. Lewis in TV Guide, May 15, 1965.
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