Jeremy Slate

Jeremy Slate, born Robert Bullard Perham on February 17, 1926, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, was an American actor, songwriter, and Broadway performer who worked across stage, film, and television until his death on November 19, 2006, in Los Angeles, California. He is recognized for his roles as Larry Lahr in the CBS series The Aquanauts (1960–1961), Chuck Wilson on the ABC daytime soap opera One Life to Live (1979–1987), and Deputy Sheriff Ben Latta in the John Wayne western The Sons of Katie Elder (1965).

Slate enlisted in the United States Navy at sixteen and served aboard a destroyer that participated in the Normandy Invasion on June 6, 1944, when he was not yet eighteen. Following the war, he enrolled at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, where he graduated with honors in English. At St. Lawrence he served as student body president, edited the college literary magazine, belonged to the honor society, played football, and coached the backfield of the only undefeated team in the university's history. He also worked as a campus radio personality and, during his senior year, married the queen of his fraternity's formal. After graduation he worked as a radio sportscaster and disc jockey for CBS and ABC affiliates, during which time he began a family that included three sons and one daughter; that marriage later ended in divorce, and he subsequently had a second daughter.

For six years Slate worked at W. R. Grace and Co. as a public relations executive and travel manager for company president J. Peter Grace. He then joined Grace Steamship Lines and relocated with his family to Lima, Peru, where he became involved with a professional theatre group and appeared in a production of The Rainmaker. His portrayal of the character Starbuck earned him the Tiahuanacothe, the Peruvian equivalent of the Tony Award. That recognition prompted him to leave W. R. Grace after a year of additional training and pursue a full-time theatrical career.

Slate made his Broadway debut in 1957 in the drama Look Homeward, Angel. His stage work preceded a sustained career in film and television that encompassed guest appearances in nearly one hundred television programs and roles in twenty feature films. He co-starred with Ron Ely in The Aquanauts, an Ivan Tors production that was retitled Malibu Run midway through its run before being cancelled after failing to compete in the same time slot as NBC's Wagon Train. He appeared twice on the courtroom drama Perry Mason — in the season three episode "The Case of the Ominous Outcast" (1960), playing Bob Lansing, and in the season five episode "The Case of the Captain's Coins" (1962), playing Philip Andrews, each time as Perry's client. He guest-starred in the syndicated western Pony Express during its 1959–1960 run and appeared nine times across the long run of CBS's Gunsmoke, including the 1962 episode "The Gallows," written by John Meston, in which he played a likable but doomed cowboy.

In 1963 alone, Slate appeared in multiple notable productions: he played Mark Novak in the NBC series Empire, opposite Ryan O'Neal; co-starred in a second-season episode of Combat! produced and directed by Robert Altman; played hired assassin Elroy Daldran in the series finale of The Untouchables; and appeared as gunslinger Billy Hargis in Gunsmoke. He played a troubled surfer in a 1962 episode of Route 66 and later appeared in a fourth-season Combat! episode in 1966. He starred as Hank in the NBC comedy Accidental Family from 1967 to 1968 and, from April to October 1985, portrayed Locke Walls on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light during a period when he was temporarily absent from One Life to Live. Additional television credits include three appearances on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, as well as guest roles on Mission: Impossible, The New Adventures of Wonder Woman, Bewitched, and My Name Is Earl.

Slate's film work in the late 1960s included four outlaw biker pictures: The Born Losers (1967), The Mini-Skirt Mob (1968), Hell's Belles (1969), and Hell's Angels '69. In The Born Losers he played the leader of the Born Losers Motorcycle Club. For Hell's Angels '69 he wrote the screen story, and the film featured real-life Hell's Angels members including club president Ralph "Sonny" Barger, Terry the Tramp, and Magoo in speaking roles. Slate broke his leg during the production and never rode a motorcycle again. He also appeared alongside Glen Campbell in True Grit (1969).

As a songwriter and BMI member, Slate wrote the lyrics to "Just Beyond the Moon," a top-twenty recording by Tex Ritter, and the lyrics to "Every Time I Itch (I Wind Up Scratchin' You)," recorded by Glen Campbell on Capitol Records.

In his personal life, Slate was briefly married to actress Tammy Grimes, during which time he was stepfather to actress Amanda Plummer. His relationship with feminist archaeologist Sally Binford in the 1970s was documented in Gay Talese's 1980 book Thy Neighbor's Wife. In 2000 he married writer and film producer Denise Mellinger Slate and became stepfather to Joseph Tolen and Erin Tolen. In 2004 he attended the Western Film Fair in Charlotte, North Carolina, alongside Stella Stevens, Andrew Prine, and Sonny Shroyer. At the time of his death his partner was Joan Benedict-Steiger. He was survived by two sons and two daughters; one son had predeceased him. Slate died on November 19, 2006, following surgery for esophageal cancer.