Robert Porter

Robert came from a large Catholic family, raised in Los Angeles, and lived at Sycamore Farms, Malibu CA in about 1970, which he leased with his brother Peter Porter. This was an old horse stable that had been a Malibu landmark for decades, still located on Cross Creek Road today just off the Malibu Lagoon and the central shopping area. The brothers built the large two-story horse barn using materials "borrowed" from the county building site a block away, and at the time the trainer was Capt. Pat Conar, an Irishman that had served in the British Cavalry and coached Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet. The stable clientèle was a mix of socialites like Gigi Gaston (Getty), actors & models along with regular locals like director Sam Peckinpah's daughter Melissa Peckinpah. The brothers lived in the small house on the property and much of the layout is still the same, except the stable was later expanded in front of the large barn and in the back. Robert's girlfriend at the time was a beautiful Hippy local Erin Murphy whose grandfather was director Dudley Murphy, founder of the famous Holiday House hotel & restaurant located a few miles up the coast. Their relationship was a tumultuous, passionate affair out of an Italian movie. This was the period after he had a few roles in major movies and was beginning to do the Indy type work that most know him for. Robert was so charismatic there was a constant stream of female stable boarders looking for any excuse to hang out. These were also the times of the anti-war protests and anti-establishment Yippies and the brothers lived the part, dressing like European aristocratic vagabonds. Robert had been heavily influenced by the Actors Studio, Method Acting and actors like Brando and James Dean, that had set the bar in the previous decade. His throwback style was out of place in the new industry which had taken on television level mass production values and cookie cutter acting styles. His friendship and association with talents like Zalman King, who later gained notoriety for cult films like Wild Orchid (1989) encouraged him to step off into the independent type roles that would let him stretch his acting chops. This was the period when he did The Jesus Trip (1971) and in the first wave of the counterculture following films such as Easy Rider (1969) there was a buzz at the time that this might be his big break in a lead role. Distribution & PR was lacking though and his last major film was Klansman (1974) with a large cast of A & B list actors starting with Lee Marvin & Richard Burton and descending down to other names like O.J. Simpson, Lola Falana and Linda Evans. His last work of note, Trip WIth the Teacher (1975), a low budget movie inspired by European New Wave films such as Antonioni's Zabriskie Point (1970), saw him in a supporting role to his friend Zalman King, who played the lead bad guy while Robert was the conflicted younger brother exasperated by his sibling's evil doings. This work would presage later violent Grindhouse movies such as Tarantino's, also influenced by major fare like Peckinpah shooters. The Porter brothers dropped out of the horse business and got into agriculture, first with a foolhardy pot grow near the Malibu/Ventura county line off Yerba Buena Road below Mt. Boney Peak, and later a stint doing some back to the land farming on the McGrath Family Farms in Oxnard which led to brother Peter going into the pickling business selling hot peppers through their company Hosan Produce. Robert was working as a stonemason in Sacramento CA in 2007 and talking about returning to acting as a teacher.