One of the standout faces of 70s cinema, who worked alongside some of Hollywood’s greats, stepped out for a rare outing in LA on Thursday.
The actor, now 84, who terrified audiences as the Scorpio Killer in Clint Eastwood’s 1971 classic Dirty Harry, appeared utterly harmless and quite sprightly while running errands.
Dressed casually in a long-sleeved T-shirt and baggy pants, he gave off a far friendlier vibe than his menacing onscreen persona in Dirty Harry – one so convincing he reportedly received death threats after the film’s release.
He struggled to escape being typecast as the bad guy, appearing as a bank robber alongside Walter Matthau in 1973’s Charley Varrick and as a sleazy chauffeur in the 1975 detective drama The Drowning Pool, starring Paul Newman.
Yet he managed to win over fans when he landed the iconic role of Elim Garak on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, despite the character being an exiled spy and elite assassin.
Can you guess the veteran actor?
One of the standout faces of 70s cinema, who worked alongside some of Hollywood’s greats, stepped out for a rare outing in LA on Thursday
The actor, now 84, who terrified audiences as the Scorpio Killer in Clint Eastwood ’s 1971 classic Dirty Harry, looked surprisingly harmless and sprightly as he ran errands
He struggled to escape being typecast as the bad guy, appearing as a bank robber alongside Walter Matthau in 1973’s Charley Varrick and as a sleazy chauffeur in the 1975 detective drama The Drowning Pool, starring Paul Newman
If you said Andrew Robinson… beam yourself up.
In 2021, Robinson looked back on his Dirty Harry role, revealing how he landed the infamous part of the Scorpio Killer – and that it all started with the film’s director, Don Siegel.
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‘Don Siegel’s son, Kris Tabori, was someone that I had worked with. Don came to New York and asked, “Who’s the best young actor in New York?” And Kris said, “Andrew Robinson.” That led to a meeting, but it was so brief, maybe 15 minutes, so I was convinced nothing would come of it,’ he told Rue Morgue.
‘Then, a few weeks later, the stage manager came down to the green room, just before we were to go onstage to perform in a play I was doing, and told us that Clint Eastwood was in the audience.
‘This was off-Broadway and it was an adaptation of a Dostoyevsky novel, so it wasn’t something that people would have thought Clint Eastwood would be showing up to. I knew why he was there.
‘Then the stage manager told us during intermission that Clint had left after the first act. Again, I thought that was that, but two weeks later I was in San Francisco.’
Robinson also explained how he prepared for the role as it was based on the real-life Zodiac killer.
‘I didn’t do much, frankly, because so little was known of the Zodiac killer, beyond these cryptic notes he had left. The only research I did was that I watched a lot of film noir.
After his chilling turn as the Scorpio Killer, Andrew Robinson played Frank Ryan on the soap opera Ryan’s Hope from 1976 to 1978, earning a Daytime Emmy nomination
Robinson’s menacing onscreen persona in Dirty Harry was so convincing he reportedly received death threats after the film’s release
Robinson revealed he barely researched the role of the Scorpio Killer, based on the real-life Zodiac, relying instead on the cryptic killer’s notes and a steady diet of film noir
Robinson managed to win over fans when he landed the role of Elim Garak on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (pictured right), despite the character being an exiled spy and elite assassin
‘They gave me some hints about Scorpio, but Don gave me a pair of paratrooper boots that I wore as the character. So that worked in dynamic with the peace insignia on my belt buckle.
‘I imagined that this guy had fought in Vietnam. I decided that the character would be totally f***-up after serving in Vietnam.’
In 2020, Robinson had also touched on being typecast as a villain after Dirty Harry, and whether he worried that Star Trek might trap him in a similar mold.
‘No, I actually wasn’t because the way the character was written, even in that first episode. I didn’t expect my participation to go beyond that one episode,’ he told Trek Movie.
‘So as far as I was concerned, that was the only episode. And the way the episode and the way the character was written took me away from, as you say, the psychopath killer role that I was kind of sick of doing.’
After his chilling turn as the Scorpio Killer, Robinson played Frank Ryan on the soap opera Ryan’s Hope from 1976 to 1978, earning a Daytime Emmy nomination.
He then racked up an impressive list of guest appearances on shows ranging from Bonanza and Kojak to The X-Files and Law & Order.
But by 1978, Robinson stepped away from full-time acting to focus on family life in Idyllwild, California.
After his chilling turn as the Scorpio Killer, Robinson played Frank Ryan on the soap opera Ryan’s Hope from 1976 to 1978, earning a Daytime Emmy nomination
Robinson also starred in 1987’s Hellraiser
He taught community theatre to local students and worked as a carpenter before returning to Hollywood in the mid-1980s.
Robinson continued to impress with standout roles, including President John F. Kennedy in a Twilight Zone revival episode and Liberace in a 1988 TV biopic.
He later directed episodes of Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Judging Amy, even starring alongside his daughter Rachel.
In 2000, he penned A Stitch in Time, inspired by Garak, and in 2024, Robinson reprised the role in Star Trek: Lower Decks, proving that even decades later, the actor remains a sci-fi legend.
