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Richard Anderson Dead: ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ Actor Dies at 91

Richard Anderson, who portrayed Oscar Goldman on The Six Million Dollar Man and its spinoff The Bionic Woman, died on Thursday, August 31. He was 91.

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The actor died at his home in Beverly Hills, family spokesman Jonathan Taylor confirmed to The New York Times.

Richard Anderson The Six Million Dollar Man
Richard Anderson in ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ ABC

Anderson’s career kicked off in the early 1950s with two dozen MGM films, including Dream Wife (1953), Forbidden Planet (1956) and Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957). His career became more television-centric in the years following as he appeared in shows including The Virginian, Mission: Impossible, Knight Rider, Murder She Wrote and Perry Mason.

After starring in two of the three Six Million Dollar Man TV movies in 1973, the New Jersey native returned for the ABC series of the same name, which aired for five seasons from 1974 to 1978. He played the chief of the Office of Scientific Intelligence and the boss of NASA astronaut-turned-secret agent Steve Austin (Lee Majors).

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Anderson famously intoned the voiceover in The Six Million Dollar Man‘s opening credits: “Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.”

The action series spawned The Bionic Woman, which aired on ABC then NBC from 1976 to 1978. Anderson was the first actor to portray the same character on two shows running concurrently on two networks, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He later returned for the reunion movies The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1987), Bionic Showdown: The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1989) and Bionic Ever After? (1994).

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The actor published a memoir, Richard Anderson: At Last … A Memoir, From the Golden Years of MGM and the Six Million Dollar Man to Now, in 2015. He was married to Carol Lee Ladd from 1955 to 1956, and Katharine Thalberg from 1961 to 1973.

Anderson is survived by daughters Ashley, Brooke and Deva, whom he shared with Thalberg.

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