Biography

Robust American action star Cliff Potts came to prominence as pugnacious characters in second features and TV series during the seventies and eighties. He was born in Glendale, California, as Clifton Vandyke Potts and was billed in his early screen appearances as 'Cliff Potter'. His first regular TV role was as a junior reporter in the high-powered, all-star drama series about a publishing empire, Les règles du jeu (1968). He next had supporting roles in the feature films Silent Running (1972) (as one of Bruce Dern's trio of recalcitrant shipmates aboard the botanic transport Valley Forge) and Le clan des irréductibles (1971) (as a junior member of Henry Fonda 's sprawling Stamper logging clan).

Potts starred in a handful of B-westerns and it is in this genre that he found some of his more rewarding roles: as a gunslinger trying to protect an Indian girl in L'apache (1972); as the rugged eponymous hero Nevada Smith (1975) in a pilot for a television series that was never made; and as Wild West outlaws Bob Dalton and Cole Younger, respectively, in La dernière chevauchée des Dalton (1979) and La belle entêtée (1980).

Potts essayed rather more unsavory characters in the mini-series L'aigle et le vautour (1976) (a self-promoting, scheming officer), the telemovie Une affaire de viol (1974) (serial rapist Larry Retzliff) and in the Star Trek: La nouvelle génération (1987) episode 'Ensign Ro' as (yet another) nefarious Starfleet Admiral involved in (yet another) conspiracy.

Potts also starred in both the pilot movie (Danger in Paradise (1977)) and the resulting NBC drama series (Big Hawaii (1977)) as Mitch Fears, the disaffected son of a wealthy, ailing Hawaiian rancher (John Dehner) who returns to the island to claim his inheritance. Much focus was given to the conflict between the autocratic, conservative father and the free-spirited, defiant son. Only nine episodes were aired before the show was unceremoniously axed. Big Hawaii is now considered as 'lost media'.

For the remainder of his acting career, Potts remained in demand as a guest star in episodic television, alternating good guys with heavies in such series as Lou Grant (1977) (a baseball scout), Hooker (1982) (a dodgy detective), Simon et Simon (1981) a (a sabotaged race car driver), MacGyver (1985) (a ruthless modern day pirate), Dallas (1978) (a protective older brother of J.R's second wife) and Arabesque (1984) (an incompetent, gun-happy sheriff). His final screen credit was in 2016.

Potts's second wife, from 1975 to 1984, was Maria Yolanda Aguayo (aka Maria Potts), with whom he had three children. Aguayo had appeared with her future husband as the Indian girl Xochitl in the western Cry for Me, Billy.

- IMDb mini biography by: I.S.Mowis