Roger Perry

An early chance for stardom came his way as the junior half of a father-and-son lawyer firm (the other half of the duo was played by Pat O'Brien) in Harrigan and Son (1960). A busy and versatile actor who had more talent than he was perhaps given credit for, Perry popped up in diverse genres throughout the 60s. His characters could be sized up on the odd occasion as shifty types, dopers or nervous weaklings, but more often as down-to-earth cops, doctors or middle echelon military types.

Was also a composer and songwriter. Barbra Streisand sang his song, "A Kid Again", during her first TV special, My Name Is Barbra (1965). Perry also composed the scores for L.A. theater productions of Make a Promise, Keep a Promise and a musical version of George Bernard Shaw's "You Never Can Tell", in which he starred with his wife, Joyce Bulifant.

Fresh-faced, blue-eyed Roger Perry is best remembered for his guest-starring role as the time-travelling U. S. Air Force pilot John Christopher in the original Star Trek: The Original Series: Tomorrow Is Yesterday (1967) episode. Discovered by Lucille Ball and signed as a Desilu contract player, he began his screen career in anthology television.

No stranger to science fiction and horror, his better known roles included a devious alien masquerading as a magazine writer in The Invaders: The Prophet (1967) and a sympathetic physician in Count Yorga, Vampire (1970).

He also enjoyed frequent guest spots on crime time TV (notably Ironside (1967) and The F. B. I.

The doctor tag somehow stuck and Perry went on to play medicos in a couple of camp cult favourites: Return Of Count Yorga (1971) (at the end of which Perry's character hurls the vampire off a balcony to his doom) and The Thing with Two Heads (1972) (as a collaborator of the demented scientist in residence, played tongue-in-cheek by Ray Milland.