Richard Herd
Richard Herd is an actor, born 1932.
Richard Herd had the face American television needed constantly: heavy set, authoritative, entirely credible behind a desk or inside a uniform. From the 1970s to the 2010s he worked without much of a pause, mostly in supporting and recurring parts, and he was very often the man in charge.
His gift was making institutional authority feel real rather than performed. He played James W. McCord Jr. in All the President's Men and a power company executive in The China Syndrome, then generals, admirals and captains for four decades. Seinfeld turned the same managerial calm into a joke, casting him as George Costanza's boss Mr Wilhelm, a man whose perfectly ordinary behaviour George cannot read at all. Star Trek: Voyager used him as Admiral Owen Paris, father as much as officer, and seaQuest DSV made him an admiral again.
Science fiction gave him the cult role. In the 1983 miniseries V and its 1984 sequel he played John, the Visitors' Supreme Commander, the calm and reasonable public face of an occupation, and it kept him turning up at fan conventions for years afterwards. He also voiced Father Elijah in the Dead Money expansion for Fallout: New Vegas. Late on, Get Out borrowed that same trustworthy authority for something much colder, and he was still working in 2018 on The Mule. He died in 2020.
Movies (23)
- Get Out (2017)
- The Mule (2018)
- Joseph: King of Dreams (2000)
- Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
- All the President's Men (1976)
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)
- The China Syndrome (1979)
- Hercules in New York (1970)
- Sgt. Bilko (1996)
- Trancers (1984)
- Summer Rental (1985)
- F.I.S.T. (1978)
- Gleaming the Cube (1989)
- Dr. Scorpion (1978)
- The Onion Field (1979)
- The Great Los Angeles Earthquake (1990)
- Wolf Lake (1980)
- That Guy... Who Was In That Thing 3: Trek Stars (2019)
- My First Love (1988)
- Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb (1980)
- Cosmic Slop (1994)
- Camp Cucamonga (1990)
- Deal of the Century (1983)
TV (8)
Where to start with Richard Herd
For most people the entry is Seinfeld, where Mr Wilhelm is a small recurring joke built entirely on Herd's ability to be unreadably reasonable while George panics in front of him.
Genre viewers should go to V and V: The Final Battle, where he is the public face of an occupation and plays it with a politician's warmth. Star Trek: Voyager uses him sparingly and to real effect as Tom Paris's father, and seaQuest DSV is the same authority in a wetter uniform. For the films, All the President's Men and The China Syndrome are two of the best American pictures of the 1970s and he is credible in both without once pulling focus. Planes, Trains and Automobiles is a small part in a beloved comedy. Get Out is the late credit most people now know him from, and the less said about it in advance the better.