Roger Perry

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 Tomorrow Is Yesterday (1967) episode. Discovered by Lucille Ball and signed as a Desilu contract player, he began his screen career in anthology television. 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. No stranger to science fiction and horror, his better known roles included a devious alien masquerading as a magazine writer in The Prophet (1967) and a sympathetic physician in Count Yorga, Vampire (1970). The doctor tag somehow stuck and Perry went on to play medicos in a couple of camp cult favourites: The 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. He also enjoyed frequent guest spots on crime time TV (notably Ironside (1967) and The F.B.I. (1965)) and soap opera (Falcon Crest (1981)). Perry sidelined as a composer and songwriter for Los Angeles theatre productions, including a mid-80s musical version of George Bernard Shaw's 'You Never Can Tell', which also featured his actress-wife Joyce Bulifant.