Roy Thinnes
- Actor
Roy was born on April 6, 1938, in Chicago, Illinois. During his
formative years, he had wanted to become a doctor or football player -
or, if one wants to believe his early press releases, both. He started
in show business at a radio station, where he did everything:
engineering, DJ shows, news and dramatizations. That led to an interest
in acting in general. After a hitch in the army, he went to New York
and then to California, where he started working in episodes of TV
shows. Having made his professional acting debut as a teen-aged firebug
in a 1957 pilot for the never-sold TV series, "Chicago 212", Thinnes
spent several lean years "between engagements", working as a hotel
clerk, vitamin salesman and copy boy to Chicago columnist
Irv Kupcinet. His first regular TV work was
as "Phil Brewer" on the daytime soap opera,
General Hospital (1963);
during this period, the young actor became the television equivalent of
a matinée idol, sparking a barrage of protest mail when he briefly left
"GH" in pursuit of other acting jobs. Aggressively campaigning for the
starring role of "Ben Quick" on
The Long, Hot Summer (1965)
-- the TV version of the film,
The Long, Hot Summer (1958)
-- Thinnes won the part, as well as a whole new crop of adoring female
fans. While "Summer" was unsuccessful, Thinnes enjoyed a longer run as
"David Vincent" on the
The Fugitive (1963)-like sci-fi
series, The Invaders (1967).
Success with this popular show also led to marriage to first wife,
Lynn Loring, who acted with him in the show
as well as in the movie,
Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969) (aka "Journey To
The Far Side Of The Sun"); she is now a CBS film executive. They parted
in 1984. Though he'd occasionally show up in such features as
The Hindenburg (1975),
Airport 1975 (1974) and
Blue Bayou (1990), Thinnes
has remained essentially a TV star. Among his post-"The Invaders"
TV-series roles was "Dr. James Whitman" on
The Psychiatrist (1970),
"Capt. (and later Maj.) Holms" on
From Here to Eternity (1980),
"Nick Hogan" on
Falcon Crest (1981) (who, in
1983, married "Victoria Gioberti"
[Jamie Rose] in a highly-rated
ceremony) and the dual role of "Roger Collins" and "Rev. Trask" in the
1991 prime-time revival,
Dark Shadows (1991). Roy's more
recent appearances on the
The X-Files (1993) put him back
in the forefront. He revived his role as the enigmatic alien, "Jeremiah
Smith", a turnabout role series creator
Chris Carter renewed for Roy in the
February 25, 2001 episode,
This Is Not Happening (2001).
