Richard Anderson: The bionic boss

Richard Anderson played Oscar Goldman in both

"The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman".

Source: https://file770.com/richard-anderson-1926-2017/

(May be subject to copyright)

Before Steve Austin, “The Six Million Dollar Man”, or Jaimie Sommers, “The Bionic Wiman”, could spring into action, they needed an assignment.

Always there waiting to give it to them was their liaison with the OSI – Oscar Goldman.

He had all the necessary information to brief them, and was usually there monitoring their mission in case they got in trouble or, more importantly, the mission got in trouble.

Oscar Goldman was played by Richard Anderson who did much more than that one character.

It was Anderson’s birthday yesterday, offering an opportunity to look back at and beyond the bionic boss.

The years before
Richard Anderson’s first movie was “La perla” in 1947, and his first TV show was a two-episode stint of “Mama Rosa” in 1950.

He appeared in movies such as “Forbidden Planet”; “The Buster Keaton Story”; “Paths of Glory”; “The Long, Hot Summer”; “The Wackiest Ship in the Army”; “Seven Days in May”; “Tora! Tora! Tora!”; and more.

Anderson also appeared in TV shows such as “The Millionaire”; “Playhouse 90”; “Steve Canyon”; “Zorro”; “Wagon Train”; “The Untouchables”; “Thriller”; “Checkmate”; “Wanted: Dead or Alive”; “Hong Kong”; “The Rifleman”; “The Virginian”; “Dr. Kildare”; “The Lieutenant”; “Combat!”: “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour”; “Perry Mason”; “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”; “I Spy”; “12 O’clock High”; “The Green Hornet”; “Mission: Impossible”; “The Fugitive”; “The Invaders”; “Bonanza”; “The Wild Wild West”; “Mannix”; “Judd for the Defense”; “The Big Valley”; “Daniel Boone”; “Land of the Giants”; “Mod Squad”; “Alias Smith and Jones”; “Columbo”; “Longstreet”; “The Bold Ones: The New Doctors”; “Hawaii Five-O”; “The Streets of San Francisco”; “The F.B.I.”; “The New Perry Mason”; “Cannon”; “Barnaby Jones”; “Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law”; “Gunsmoke”; “Ironside”; and much more.

Then, in 1973, Richard Anderson played for the first time a role he would become synonymous with over the next 20 years.

Oscar Goldman
“The Six Million Dollar Man” was based on the book “Cyborg”, and starred Lee Majors as Steve Austin, a pilot who is virtually killed in a horrific crash. Yet, an organization called the OSI rebuilds him, using bionic technology. He is given two bionic legs, a bionic right arm and bionic eye. In return, he goes on missions as an operative with the OSI.

“The Six Million Dollar Man” began with three television movies released in 1973. The first one was called “The Six Million Dollar Man: The Moon and the Desert“, but Richard Anderson did not became the head of the OSI and the bionic man’s boss until the second movie, called “The Six Million Dollar Man; Wine, Women and War”.

“The Six Million Dollar Man: The Solid Gold Kidnapping” followed, and a few months later the series began.

Oscar Goldman was the one who convinced his superiors to make Steve Austin the first bionic man. Once Steve was healthy, Oscar was the one who gave Steve his assignment every week, then would periodically check in.

He was also the one Steve convinced to make Jaime Sommers the first bionic woman, when she was injured as badly in a parachuting accident as Steve was in his crash. Her bionics initially rejected her body, and Jaime died. However, she was actually saved and recovered, and her body ultimately accepted her bionics. The result was “The Bionic Woman”, a spin-off to “The Six Million Dollar Man”. So Oscar would also visit Jaime and giver her assignments every week, then periodically check in.

However, some of the best episodes were when something happened to Oscar. In one episode of “The Six Million Dollar Man”, he is replaced by a robot that Steve ends up fighting. In probably the best episodes of “The Bionic Woman”, a disgruntled former OSI scientist, played by John Houseman, creates a group of “fembots”. He uses them to systematically replace key secretaries in the OSI to steal information, and actually replaces Oscar with one as well. It was a three-parter called “Kill Oscar”, with one of the parts crossing over to “The Six Million Dollar Man”.

After its second season, ABC cancelled “The Bionic Woman”. However, it was picked up by NBC. Richard Anderson became the first, and perhaps only, actor to play the same character on two different shows on two different networks at the same time.

Both shows were cancelled at the end of that season. “The Six Million Dollar Man” ran from 1973 to 1978, for five seasons and 102 episodes. “The Bionic Woman” ran from 1976 to 1978 for three seasons and 58 episodes.

Yet, that would not be the end. Instead, there would be three television movies – “The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman” in 1987; “Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman” in 1989; and “Bionic Ever After?” in 1994.

So, at the dawn of the ‘80s, Richard Anderson had turned in his signature performance, but he kept on working.

Dawn of the decade
Anderson closed out the 1970s with appearances in the TV movies “The Immigrants” and “Murder by Natural Causes”; and TV miniseries “Pearl”; “The French Atlantic Affair”; and “Condominium”.

He also appeared in an episode of “The Love Boat” in 1979, as Doc Bricker’s mentor, who had lost an arm.

As the ‘80s opened, Anderson appeared in “The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo”; “Charlie’s Angels”; “Nero Wolfe”; “Darkroom”; two episodes of “Knight Rider”; “Bring ‘Em Back Alive” as Douglas MacArthur; “Whiz Kids”; “The Fall Guy”; “Automan”; four episodes of “Fantasy Island”; and two episodes of “Matt Houston”.

In 1984, he played Henry Towler in the series “Cover Up”, starring Jon-Erik Hexum and Jennifer O’Neill as a model and fashion photographer who are actually government operatives. Henry Towler was their liaison who gave them their assignments. Sadly, Hexum was killed in an accident on the set part way through the season, and was succeeded by Antony Hamilton. “Cover Up” lasted just the 1984-1985 season for a total of 21 episodes on Channel 7 of the peasant vision dial. Henry Towler was very similar to Oscar Goldman.

Anderson also appeared in the miniseries “Kane and Abel” in 1985, which was a heavily promoted production.

That same year, 1985, he appeared in “Perry Mason Returns”. He was the man wrongly accused of murder who Perry Mason comes out of retirement to defend. That movie would be the springboard for that long run of Perry Mason movies starring Raymond Burr.

Anderson would also appear in “The A-Team”; “Hardcastle and McCormick”; three episodes of “Simon and Simon”; nine episodes of “Dynasty” as Senator Buck Fallmont in the 1986-1987 season; “Danger Bay”; “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”; two episodes of “Murder, She Wrote”; the TV movies “The Stepford Children” and “Stranger on My Land”; and as “Lyndon Johnson” in the miniseries “Hoover vs. the Kennedys: The Second Civil War”.

The years after
Richard Anderson continued working, appearing as himself in the movie “The Player”; as well as in TV movies and miniseries, and was the narrator for all 83 episodes of “Kung Fu: The Legend Continues”.

He died on August 31, 2017.

He was 91.

Parting thoughts
Richard Anderson became synonymous with Oscar Goldman. To be honest, every time I saw him in a different show, I thought, “Hey, there’s Oscar.”

The thing is, the Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman universe became a cultural touchstone. It was a unique part of pop culture that everyone of a certain age remembers.

Richard Anderson was a big part of that, so he will always be associated with that iconic character.

After all, neither Steve nor Jaimie could get to work until they got their mission from Oscar.