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During his formative years, Roy Thinnes had wanted to become a doctor or football
player--or, if one wants to believe his early press releases, both. Having made his
professional acting debut as a teen-aged firebug in a 1957 pilot for the never-sold TV
series Chicago 212, Thinnes spent several lean years "between engagements,"
working as a hotel clerk, vitamin salesman and copy boy to Chicago Sun Times
columnist Irv Kupcinet. His first regular TV work was as Phil Brewer on the daytime
soap opera General Hospital; during this period, the young actor became the
television equivalent of a matinee idol, sparking a barrage of protest mail when he
briefly left GH in pursuit of other acting jobs. Aggressively campaigning for the starring
role of Ben Quick on the 1965 weekly-TV version of the 1958 film Long Hot Summer,
Thinnes won the part, as well as a whole new crop of adoring female fans. While
Summer was unsuccessful, Thinnes enjoyed a longer run as David Vincent on the
Fugitive-like sci-fi series The Invaders (1967-68). Though he'd occasionally show up
in such theatrical features as Hindenburg (1975), Airport 75 (1975) and Blue Bayou
(1990), Thinnes would remain essentially a TV star for the rest of his career. Among
Roy Thinnes' post-Invaders TV-series roles was Dr. James Whitman on The
Psychiatrist (1971), Capt (and later Major) Holms on From Here to Eternity
(1979-80), Nick Hogan on Falcon Crest (who, in 1983, married Victoria Gioberti
[Jamie Rose] in a highly-rated ceremony) and the dual role of Roger Collins and
Reverend Trask in the 1991 prime-time revival of Dark Shadows. He is currently known as the enigmatic alien healer Jeremiah Smith, a rebel shapefshifter who has various clones of himself at strategic points on Earth in the X-Files TV Series circa 1995. His character has been revived in the 2000-2001 season.