Ramon Bieri

Ramon Bieri was a character actor who had over 100 roles in nearly 40 years on television, and appeared in such film classics as "The Andromeda Strain" and "Badlands" in the early 1970s. Bieri began his career on television in the early '60s, already in his early 30s, and made a series of single-episode appearances before landing a recurring guest role on the Western classic "Gunsmoke" in '68. The following year, he made guest appearances on the comedy "Room 222" before his career broke out in the early '70s--in '71, he co-starred with George Kennedy on the short-lived priest drama, "Sarge," and on the big screen had a significant supporting role as Major Manchek in the epic sci-fi thriller "The Andromeda Strain."

In '73, he played the key character of Cato in Terrence Malick's gravely dark and highly influential crime romance "Badlands," along with Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen. Bieri had another big supporting part with two more acting legends--Harrison Ford and Gene Wilder--in the '79 comedy Western "The Frisco Kid," about a rabbi trying to make his way to San Francisco by way of the Old West. That same year, Bieri was given the title role on the obscure drama "Joe's World," which lasted only a single season. Other notable roles included a guest stint on "Bret Maverick" in the early '80s and "St. Elsewhere" in the mid-'80s, and a co-starring part along with Cyndi Lauper and Jeff Goldblum in the New Age mystery about psychics, "Vibes," in '88.