Robert V. Barron(1932-2000)
- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Tall, gaunt, rawboned character actor with deep voice, reminiscent of
John Carradine. Formal education at
Morris Harvey College in Charleston, West Virginia and as Theater Arts
major at UCLA. Professional training at American Academy of Dramatic
Arts in New York City, and at
Max Reinhardt Workshop in Los
Angeles. Before attacking Hollywood, he spent several years working in
regional theaters from one end of the US to the other, and had built an
impressive resume of glowing reviews of his performances in such roles
as "Cyrano de Bergerac", "Abe Lincoln in Illinois", "Sir Thomas More"
in "A Man For All Seasons", "Henry Drummond" in "Inherit The Wind",
"Richard III" and the like, but he was never offered such lofty
challenges in films or television. Still, he didn't languish, but
instead relished every chance he was given to play for the camera,
whether in a quality major studio production or the cheesiest of
no-budget fly-by-night productions. When he wasn't acting, he uncovered
his typewriter and cranked out teleplays and movie scripts. Perhaps his
best-remembered television script was his first, a lighthearted comedy
episode of the Bonanza (1959) series,
titled
Hoss and the Leprechauns (1963).
As a writer, he drifted into adapting English-dubbing scripts of
foreign films. American producers began buying successful Japanese
animated series and dubbing them into English, and Barron was a pioneer
in that industry, which grew rapidly and enormously. He became
executive director and story editor for "Saban Productions", which in
the course of five years became one of the largest producers of
children's programming in the world, with such shows as
X-Men (1992) and
Power Rangers (1993).
