Gary Sandy

Although Gary Sandy has had a solid career as a working actor since the early 1970s, the Ohio native will forever be best known for his one starring role, as the affable but beleaguered station manager Andy Travis on the cult favorite sitcom "WKRP In Cincinnati." After attending New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Sandy spent much of the first half of the 1970s appearing on soap operas including "Another World," "As the World Turns," and "Somerset," while also working in Off-Broadway and Broadway shows and appearing in a few small films. In 1977, Sandy took a supporting role on Norman Lear's short-lived satirical soap opera parody "All That Glitters"; set in a world where gender roles were reversed, Sandy played the secretary of a high-powered female business executive. The following year, creator Hugh Wilson cast Sandy as the center of his series "WKRP in Cincinnati"; as Andy Travis, the new program director who changes a failing AM radio station from elevator music to rock, Sandy played the straight man in an office filled with loons ranging from dissolute D.J. Dr. Johnny Fever to sleazy sales manager Herb Tarlek. Though it was a critical darling, the series never gained a particularly large audience, and it was canceled in 1982. Although Sandy appeared in a handful of TV shows and films following its demise, including a small role as a tobacco industry lawyer in "The Insider," he has largely focused on live theater since the 1980s.