Robert Casper(1924-2020)

American general purpose actor, busy on television between the early 60s and the late 80s. Casper joined a travelling children's theatre straight out of high school. He was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942, serving in India, Burma and China. Upon his discharge, he perfected his craft at the Goodman Theatre School in Chicago and subsequently performed on and off-Broadway. In between acting assignments he toiled as a waiter at New York restaurants to make ends meet. In the late 50s, he settled in North Hollywood and appeared in several early anthology television series. He had a featured part in just a couple of cinematic motion pictures: Studs Lonigan (1960) (as a short-lived friend of the titular protagonist) and The Right Approach (1961) (as an aspiring set designer who goes by the highfalutin moniker Horace Wetheridge Tobey III). Otherwise, Casper's career was confined entirely to the small screen. In addition to several TV commercials, he made appearances in a steady dose of popular prime time fare like Perry Mason (1957), Batman (1966), Mannix (1967), Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974) and Simon & Simon (1981), playing teachers, professors, lawyers, maitre D's, etcetera. He also enjoyed recurring roles in Room 222 (1969) and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976) (as a cyptozoologist). Casper retired from acting in 1990. In private life, he was said to have been an avid reader and bibliophile.