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R.G. Armstrong - Millennium Cast Profile

A Millennium cast profile of R.G. Armstrong, listing all episodes and seasons in which R.G. Armstrong appeared. The main cast and guest stars of Chris Carter's Millennium have summaries, trivia and biographies where available.

Please note that our episode, cast, character and crew profiles may contain potential spoilers if you have yet to see the entire series of Millennium.


 

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This profile has been viewed 9933 times.

It was last viewed on Friday, March 29, 2024, 9:16 AM (UTC).

Profile ID

530

Born

  • April 7 1917.

Died

  • July 27 2012.

Age

  • R.G. Armstrong would have been 106 years old.

Personal Trivia

  • Robert Golden Armstrong was born in Pleasant Grove, Jefferson County Alabama, USA.
  • R.G. Armstrong appeared in 3 episode/s of the Millennium television series.

Awards Won for Millennium

  • Unfortunately R.G. Armstrong didn't win any awards for Millennium.

Award Nominations for Millennium

  • Sadly R.G. Armstrong didn't receive any award nominations for Millennium.

R.G. Armstrong's Millennium Cast Profile

Millennium Profile image of R.G. Armstrong.

Profile

Robert Golden Armstrong, Jr., known as R. G. Armstrong (April 7, 1917 - July 27, 2012), was an American actor and playwright. A veteran character actor who appeared in dozens of Westerns over the course of his 40-year career, he may be best remembered for his work with director Sam Peckinpah. For Millennium fans, he will forever fondly be known as the charismatic and mysterious The Old Man.

Early Life

Armstrong was born in Pleasant Grove, Alabama, and was reared on a small farm near Birmingham. He came from a family of religious fundamentalists, and his mother wanted him to be a pastor. Armstrong initially enrolled at Howard College, now Samford University in Homewood, Albama, where he became interested in acting, and then transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. While there, along with classmate Andy Griffith, he began acting on stage with the Carolina Playmakers. Upon graduating, he attended the Actors Studio.

Career

Armstrong quickly launched a career on Broadway. He won considerable acclaim for his role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He also began writing his own plays, which were performed off-Broadway.

Armstrong's first film appearance was in the 1954 film Garden of Eden. However, it was television where he first earned a name for himself. He guest-starred in virtually every TV Western produced in the 1950s and 1960s, including: Have Gun - Will Travel, The Californians, Jefferson Drum, The Big Valley, The Rifleman, Zane Grey Theater, Wanted: Dead or Alive, The Westerner, Bonanza, Maverick (as Louise Fletcher's character's father in the episode which drew the series' largest single viewership, "The Saga of Waco Williams"), Gunsmoke, Rawhide and Wagon Train.

On November 22, 1960, in the episode "License to Kill" of NBC's Laramie, Armstrong plays Sam Jarrad, a former bounty hunter and a sheriff in Colorado, who comes to Laramie, Wyoming, with a warrant for Jess Harper, played by series co-star Robert Fuller. Jess is accused of murdering a powerful rancher named Blake Wilkie. Slim Sherman, played by series co-start John Smith, is deputized to accompany Jarrad and Jess to Colorado. Denny Miller, later cast on Wagon Train as a regular, Duke Shannon, along with Robert Fuller as Cooper Smith, appears in this episode as Wilkie's son, who frames Jess for Blake Wilkie's death. William Fawcett plays Ben, the Sherman Ranch housekeeper, a role that Fawcett also filled on NBC's Fury.

Armstrong also appeared on The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Everglades, The Andy Griffith Show, The Fugitive, Perry Mason, Daniel Boone, T.H.E. Cat, Hawaii Five-O, Starsky and Hutch, The Dukes of Hazzard and Dynasty. Armstrong had a recurring role in the second season of Millennium as a reclusive visionary known only as the Old Man. In the late 1980s, he played the demonic "Uncle Lewis Vendredi" in the Canadian horror series Friday the 13th: The Series.

While working on The Westerner, Armstrong made the acquaintance of up-and-coming writer/director Sam Peckinpah. The two immediately struck up a friendship. Peckinpah recognized Armstrong's inner turmoil regarding the religious beliefs of his family and utilized that to brilliant effect in his films. Armstrong would almost always play a slightly unhinged fundamentalist Christian in Peckinpah's films, usually wielding a Bible in one hand and a shotgun in the other. This character archetype appeared in Ride the High Country (1962), Major Dundee (1965) and, perhaps most memorably, in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973). However, Armstrong also appeared in The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), playing a more likeable character.

Even outside of Peckinpah's work, however, Armstrong became a tier-one character actor in his own right, appearing in dozens of films over his career, playing both villains and sympathetic characters. Some of his more memorable roles outside of Peckinpah's films include a sympathetic rancher in El Dorado (1966), Cap'n Dan in The Great White Hope (1970), outlaw Clell Miller in The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972), a bumbling outlaw in My Name is Nobody (1973), Race with the Devil (1975), as well as Children of the Corn (1984), Red Headed Stranger (1986) with Willie Nelson and as the General in Predator (1987). He appeared in several of Warren Beatty's films, including Heaven Can Wait (1978), Reds (1981) and as Pruneface in Dick Tracy (1990).

Despite being typecast as gruff and violent characters throughout his career, Armstrong is well known for having had a warm and affable personality offscreen. He semi-retired from films and television in the late 1990s, but continued to be active in off-Broadway theater in New York and Los Angeles, until finally retiring from acting in 2005 because of near-blindness due to cattaracts.

Personal life and death

Amstrong was married three times: his first wife was Ann Neale, with whom he had four children; he was then married to Susan Guthrie until 1976; he was married to his third wife, Mary Craven, until her death in 2004. Armstrong died of natural causes at the age of 95 on July 27, 2012 at his home in Studio City, California. He is survived by his four children from the first marriage.

Profile text courtesy of Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.


Millennium Cast, Character or Crew Credit

R.G. Armstrong was a member of Millennium's cast.


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IMDB.com Entry

R.G. Armstrong has an entry at the Internet Movie Database, available at:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0035866/

Wikipedia Entry

R.G. Armstrong has an entry at Wikipedia, available at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._G._Armstrong

Facebook Page

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Millennium Appearances

R.G. Armstrong appeared in the following 3 episode/s of Millennium:

MLM#-202 Beware of the Dog as The Old Man

MLM#-214 Owls as The Old Man

MLM#-216 Roosters as The Old Man