Robert V. Barron was an American TV and film director, producer, screenwriter and actor best known for his role as the voice of Admiral Donald Hayes in the 1980s animated TV seriesRobotech, of which he also served as the supervising producer. He is also well known for playing the role of Abraham Lincoln in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure in 1989.
Career
Tall, gaunt, rawboned character actor with deep voice, reminiscent of John Carradine. Barron's attended Morris Harvey College in Charleston, West Virginia, and later UCLA. He later had acting training at American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, and at Max Reinhardt Workshop in Los Angeles. Barron got his entertainment start in radio co-producing a two-hour Saturday morning radio program, the "Bop Shop." which aired for a two years on radio station WGKV-AM in his hometown of Charleston, West Virginia. Before permanently moving to California, and also before his Hollywood work, he spent several years working in regional theaters from one end of the U.S. to the other, and had built an impressive resume of glowing reviews of his performances in such roles as Cyrano de Bergerac, Abe Lincoln In Illinois, Sir Thomas More in A ManFor All Seasons, Henry Drummond in Inherit The Wind, Richard III and the like, but he was never offered such lofty challenges in films or television. In Hollywood, as an actor, he not only made appearances in television shows such as Quantum Leap, Get a Life, Father Dowling Mysteries and movies such as The Spring and A Dangerous Place but he also wrote episodes of the NBC television western series Bonanza and the CBS-TV western/spy series Wild, Wild West. Perhaps his best-remembered television script was his first, a lighthearted comedy episode of the Bonanza, titled "Hoss and The Leprechauns". As a writer, he drifted into adapting English dubbing scripts of foreign films. American producers began buying successful Japanese animated series and dubbing them into English, and Barron was a pioneer in that industry, which grew rapidly and enormously. He became executive director and story editor for Saban Productions, which in the course of five years became one of the largest producers of children's programming in the world, with such shows as X-Men and Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. He also made appearances on TV series such as Bonanza, Mannix, Love American Style and Night Court. He also played a pool player in an episode of CBS-TV's Dukes of Hazzard. Barron also co-wrote the standard song "Cindy, Oh Cindy" with Bert Long. Barron died in Salinas, California. His interment was in Salinas's Garden of Memories Memorial Park.
