Actor and star of The Six Million Dollar Man

Born: August 8, 1926;

Died: August 31, 2017

RICHARD Anderson, who has died aged 91, made movies with Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas and Paul Newman, but is best known as the man who announced “We can rebuild him, we have the technology” and dispatched bionic man Steve Austin off to fight a string of outlandish villains.

As the boss at one of those mysterious international agencies that were popular in television shows in the 1960s and 1970s, Anderson sent Austin, the eponymous hero of The Six Million Dollar Man, and Jaime Sommers, The Bionic Woman, on more than 150 missions between 1974 and 1978.

No one could have predicted the longevity of the character when Anderson was approached to play Oscar Goldman in a couple of television movies in 1973. He was not even the first actor to fulfil the role of Austin’s superior and had only one day’s notice that he was taking over.

Darren McGavin fulfilled the role, as a different character, in the original TV movie. But for reasons that are not entirely clear Anderson was brought in for the next two movies, which were followed by five series of The Six Million Dollar Man, starring Lee Majors, and three series of The Bionic Woman, with Lindsay Wagner.

Although he stood 6 foot 3 inches tall, Anderson was a more fatherly figure than McGavin and was to prove a popular character in his own right. In the 2005 comedy The 40-Year-Old-Virgin, Steve Carell is the proud owner of an Oscar Goldman action figure, but then he is a 40-year-old virgin.

Richard Norman Anderson was born in 1926 in New Jersey. His family had a successful millinery business, though they were hit by the Depression and his family moved to California. After Army service, Anderson worked in theatre, radio and television, where he was spotted by Cary Grant, who helped get him into movies with MGM.

He made more than 20 films at the studio, including the cult sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet (1954). After leaving MGM, he played the prosecutor in Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957), but he worked mainly in television, including a recurring role as a police officer on Perry Mason (1965-66).

In the opening sequence of The Six Million Dollar Man, Anderson is informed that the astronaut hero has been in a terrible accident and has lost an arm, both legs and an eye. He boldly announces that they will rebuild him, albeit that the work comes with a hefty bill.

Anderson maintained that the show revived the idea of the traditional “white hat” hero after the traumas of Vietnam. And although the plots were somewhat fanciful, they were ahead of their time in exploring the notion of cyborgs.

Anderson was married twice. His second wife was Katharine Thalberg, daughter of actress Norma Shearer and the legendary producer Irving Thalberg. Both marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by three daughters, one of whom was a senior diplomat under President Obama and served as acting president of the UN Security Council.

BRIAN PENDREIGH