Robert Ridgely Biography

American actor Robert Ridgely's first television job was the part of Kimbro in the 1962 wartime drama The Gallant Men. He later played a Ted Baxter-ish anchor man on Domestic Life (1984), and was earlier featured as an unctuous talent-show emcee in Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard (1979). Ridgely showed up in a brace of Mel Brooks films during the early '90s, including Life Stinks (1991) and Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), and was featured in Michael Keaton's Multiplicity and Tom Hanks' That Thing You Do! Although he was always busy in front of the cameras, the actor was best-known as one of show business' most prolific and versatile voice-over artists. Ridgely's extensive TV-cartoon resumé included the title roles in Flash Gordon: The Greatest Adventure of All (1979), Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle (1980), and Thundarr the Barbarian (1982) Ridgely made his final film appearances in Boogie Nights and Fire Down Below (both 1997). He died of cancer in 1997 at the age of 65. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi