Robert Gerringer
Robert Gerringer is an actor, born 1926.
A principled walk-out ended the role he is remembered for. Robert Gerringer played Dr. Dave Woodard in twenty-nine episodes of the gothic soap Dark Shadows between May and September 1967, a part not among the credits listed here. That October, during a technicians' strike, he refused to cross a NABET picket line that his own union AFTRA was supporting. He was replaced by Peter Turgeon for seven episodes and the character was then written out permanently. It is a rare case where a performer's politics can be dated to the week and priced to the job.
The rest is New York character work of a sort that barely exists now: daytime serials, live and taped anthology drama, and small sharp turns in films shot in the city. He was in The Edge of Night and in the serial Texas, took a part in ABC Stage 67, and appeared in three studio features inside five years, The Exorcist, The Way We Were and The Sentinel, playing exactly the kind of professional man in a suit those films required in the background of a scene.
His last credit here is Tanner '88, the political mockumentary series, as a farmer. He died in 1989. There is no signature performance to point to, which is true of most working actors and says nothing about the work.
Movies (3)
TV (4)
Where to start with Robert Gerringer
There is no lead performance to point at here, so pick by the film rather than the part. The Exorcist is the obvious one, and he is a face at a party in it, nothing more. The same applies to The Way We Were and The Sentinel, which is the strangest of the three and the most rewarding for anyone with a taste for 1970s New York horror.
Tanner '88 is where the actual interest lies. Improvised political satire shot as documentary, made by people who were paying close attention to how campaigns really talk, and small supporting players carry a lot of it.
For the daytime work, The Edge of Night gives the flavour of the industry he mostly lived in. His best-known role, on Dark Shadows, is not among these credits.