Barry Atwater

Barry Atwater was a character actor who worked prolifically from the 1950s through the 1970s. One of his earliest roles came when he was in his late-thirties on the Walter Cronkite-narrated historical series, "You Are There." Many of his other roles in the '50s were westerns, but in 1958, he landed a recurring part on the classic crime-mystery "Perry Mason," appearing on six episodes over a five-year span. He would revisit this genre frequently in the 1970s, with recurring parts on the cop drama "Hawaii Five-O," the anthology series "Night Gallery," and the cop drama "Mannix." Atwater's role as a serial killer/vampire on the horror-thriller "The Night Stalker" in 1972 caught the attention of fans of classic horror. In 1966, Atwater began a five-episode run on the popular action-thriller "Mission: Impossible," appearing as a different character on each episode over a seven-year-span. At the end of a run of crime-drama roles through the 1970s, Atwater had a small movie role as a lawyer in the Sylvester Stallone-starring Teamster drama, "F.I.S.T."; Atwater passed away from a stroke at age 60, just after the film's release in April of that year.