Alan Oppenheimer

Alan Oppenheimer (born April 23, 1930) is an American retired actor. He has performed numerous roles on live-action television since the 1960s and has had an active career doing voice work since the 1970s.

Early life Oppenheimer was born in New York City on April 23, 1930, to Louis and Irene Oppenheimer. His father was a stockbroker.

Career Character roles As a character actor, Oppenheimer has had diverse roles in popular American television programming, from playing a Nazi and a Hollywood movie star on Hogan's Heroes, to playing an Israeli secret agent as well as a double-agent KAOS scientist on Get Smart, to being the second actor to play Dr. Rudy Wells in The Six Million Dollar Man (Martin Balsam played the role in the pilot film). Oppenheimer took over as Rudy starting with the second pilot film, Wine, Women and War, up until the introduction of The Bionic Woman in 1975, whereupon Martin E. Brooks took over as Wells up until cancellation. He was the original Mickey Malph (Ralph Malph's dad) on Happy Days. He played a recurring role during the first two seasons of St. Elsewhere as Helen Rosenthal's husband, Ira. He had a recurring role as Mayor Alvin B. Tutwiller on Mama's Family.

Oppenheimer has appeared in science fiction in the 1973 cult classic Westworld, where he played the head IT technician. He has also appeared in three Star Trek series, always playing a different character. He appeared in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Rightful Heir" as a Klingon cleric, Koroth, a primary instigator of the cloning of Kahless; on Deep Space Nine as Starfleet Captain Declan Keogh in command of the USS Odyssey; and as an alien ambassador in Voyager.

Oppenheimer also appeared as film director Cecil B. DeMille in the 1994 Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Blvd.

Voice acting

Oppenheimer has voiced many characters, often for Filmation in the 1970s and 1980s, such as Fraidy Cat, Jasper Catdaver, Captain Eddie Kittenbacker and Cloud Nine on Uncle Croc's Blocks Fraidy Cat; Mighty Mouse, Oil Can Harry, Swifty and the narrator on The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle; Ming the Merciless on Flash Gordon; the Overlord on BlackStar; Skeletor, Man-At-Arms and Mer-Man from Filmation's 1980s cartoon He-Man and the Masters of the Universe; and the voice of Prime Evil in the 1986 TV series, Filmation's Ghostbusters. Other notable voice roles include Thundarr the Barbarian, Vanity on The Smurfs, Rhinokey and Crock from The Wuzzles and Falkor, Gmork, Rockbiter, and the Narrator from 1984's The NeverEnding Story. In the early 1990s, Oppenheimer was the voice of Merlin in The Legend of Prince Valiant. He also provided the voice of Barkerville in the Pound Puppies TV special, and provided additional voices on Battle of the Planets in 1978.

Oppenheimer worked on The Transformers, most notably as two contrasting characters, the pacifist Beachcomber and the bellicose Warpath. His rendition of Seaspray was remarkably similar to Mer-Man, including the gurgling effects. He took over the voice of Roger Smith's butler Norman Burg in the English dub of the second season of The Big O. He was the voice of the never-seen Alistair Crane on the soap opera Passions until 2004, when the character was finally shown on camera, played by David Bailey. More recently, he provided the voice of the scientist for the 2009 film 9 and Batman's butler Alfred Pennyworth in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.

Oppenheimer's repertoire also includes video games, voicing Dr. Piotr Ivanovich in Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix, Prometheus in God of War II and Jandor the Airship Captain in Nox. He additionally voiced Harold in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, Dyntos and the Chariot Master in Kid Icarus: Uprising, and Darm and the Narrator in Ys.

In 2019, Oppenheimer guest-starred on the animated series Tigtone and featured in Toy Story 4 as Old Timer.

Personal life Oppenheimer married costume designer Marianna Elliott in 1958 and together they had three children. The couple divorced, but they remarried in 1992 and they remained married until her death in 2003.

Filmography Films

Awards and nominations 1991 – Nominated – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series as Eugene Kinsella in Murphy Brown