John McLiam

McLiam's acting career kicked off in 1946 with Maxwell Anderson's Winterset in San Francisco — a serious, politically charged drama that set the tone for the kind of material he'd gravitate toward throughout his life (Wikipedia). He moved to New York after a handful of California stage roles, and by 1951 he was on Broadway, playing a guard in Anderson's Barefoot in Athens. More Broadway followed: Shaw's Saint Joan, Tiger at the Gates (Christopher Fry's version of a Jean Giraudoux play, which ran 1959–60), and the original cast of One More River in 1960 (Wikipedia). Then California called again. He relocated in 1960 to pursue film and television work, and the roles started stacking up fast. My Fair Lady (1964) cast him as a cockney ne'er-do-well — a small part in a massive production, but one that put him in front of a global audience. Then came what many would consider his breakout stretch: Boss Kean in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Herbert Clutter in In Cold Blood (1967), and a guest appearance as a flight instructor for Aunt Bee in Season 8 of The Andy Griffith Show, episode "Aunt Bee's Big Moment" (Wikipedia). That's a lot of ground to cover in a single year. The 1970s kept him busy — Halls of Anger (1970), Woody Allen's Sleeper (1973), The Iceman Cometh (1973), rancher David Braxton in The Missouri Breaks (1976). He played Orval in First Blood (1982), the Sylvester Stallone action film that launched the Rambo franchise, which brought him to a new generation of viewers who probably didn't know his stage background at all. Hard to say if McLiam ever got the above-the-title recognition his range deserved, but his filmography makes the case on its own.