T.J. HOOKER BRITISH ANNUAL

excerpt four :
RICHARD HERD - "WHY I ENJOY PLAYING CHARACTER PARTS"

Richard Herd has spent 27 years as an actor, building his career on character parts and supporting roles. But playing second banana has never discouraged him.

"I think leading men are often not given the best roles," he says. "The finest roles today are being written for character actors and I prefer roles with challenge and bite in them."

Herd, who portrays the politically ambitious, by-the-book police captain Dennis Sheridan in "T.J. Hooker", has seen and done a lot in his time in the theatre.

"I've been there when the money's just nickels and dimes," he says. "I've been a teamster driver, a merchant seaman, a clown and a steeple-jack in order to keep on acting. There comes a time when you make an assessment--either you go on with the great struggle or you quit."

Herd has always elected to go on. A native of Brighton, Massachusetts, he started his interest in acting by accident. His main ambition while he attended Boston English High School was to become a musician. He and his group would practice in the school basement at night. Also rehearsing at the same time was a group of radio actors who put on dramatic shows for WDJA in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Herd apprenticed with the Boston Summer Theatre and, when he won his Equity card, he joined the Marblehead Playhouse while still in high school. He entered Boston University but soon dropped out to go to New York and pursue a career.

His first job was with a children's theatre touring company where he earned $40 a week to act, $5 a week to drive the truck and an additional $5 to be the stage manager. The army caught up with him on the road in 1953 and he spent the next two years in army ordinance.

Herd returned to acting in 1955, dividing his time between the Equity Library Theatre in New York, the Players Stage in Hollywood and Erie Playhouse where he worked for two seasons and did 50 plays. He returned to New York to work off-Broadway in "Under Milkwood", "Electra", "Harlequinade", "The Coach With The Six Insides" at night and "The Secret Storm" and "The Guiding Light" on television during the day.

Herd also worked in over 50 training films for the army, but his feature film break came from a former stage casting director, Isobel Haliburton, who cast him in "All The President's Men". Among his other feature credits are "I Never Promised You A Rose Garden", "F.I.S.T.", "The China Syndrome", "The Onion Field", "Private Benjamin", "Schizoid", and "The Honour Guard".

He has guested on television in "Dallas", "M*A*S*H", "Hart to Hart", "The Greatest American Hero", and "The Devlin Connection". Herd has also guset starred in the television features "Ike". "Enola Gay", "Marciano", "Terror Out of the Sky" and "Captains and Kings".

Herd, who has a daughter and son by a former marriage, has written a play, "Prisoner of the Crown", which had its world premiere at The Abbey Theatre in Dublin and he is currently writing a screenplay. He and his wife, Patricia, make their home base in Hollywood but try to spend three months a year in New York.

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©1983 Columbia Pictures Industries Inc.

Published by GRANDREAMS LTD., Jadwin House, 205/211 Kentish Town Road, London NW5. Printed in Holland. ISBN 0 86227 155 X.