Lou Antonio

Lou Antonio is an American actor and television director born Louis Demetrios Antoniou on January 23, 1934, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His mother was of English, French, and German descent, while his father's side was Greek; the family surname was originally Antoniou. During his teenage years, Antonio worked as a sports reporter for the Daily Oklahoman. He attended the University of Oklahoma on a journalism scholarship, earning a degree in French, and also took acting courses and performed on stage during that time. After relocating to New York City, he studied acting with Lee Strasberg, Curt Conway, and Lonny Chapman.

Antonio's stage career in New York spanned from 1960 to 1964 and included Broadway productions such as The Good Soup, Ready When You Are C.B.!, The Garden of Sweets, Andorra, and The Lady of the Camellias. He received a Theatre World Award in 1959. In January 1962, he served as a guest artist at Elmwood Playhouse in Nyack, New York, where he directed Enid Bagnold's The Chalk Garden.

His film work includes a role as Osman in the 1963 feature America, America and the part of Koko in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke. On the 1961 film Splendor in the Grass, he appeared in an uncredited role as an oil field worker at a party.

Beginning in the mid-1960s, Antonio built an extensive television acting career, frequently appearing in multiple episodes of the same series as different characters. His television credits include The Naked City, The Defenders, The Fugitive, Twelve O'Clock High, Gunsmoke, Mission: Impossible, The Monkees, The F.B.I., The Mod Squad, I Dream of Jeannie, Dan August, Cannon, Hawaii Five-O, Night Gallery, Bracken's World, The Rookies, and The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, among others. He guest-starred as the human version of a chimpanzee-turned-human in the fifth-season Bewitched episode titled "Going Ape," and played the character Barney in The Snoop Sisters. On Star Trek, Antonio co-starred with Frank Gorshin in the third-season episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," which aired in 1969 and became one of the most widely recognized episodes of the series. In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter ranked it the eleventh best television episode across all Star Trek franchise series prior to Star Trek: Discovery, excluding films. That same year, SyFy ranked Antonio and Gorshin, in their respective roles as Lokai and Bele, as the tenth best guest stars on Star Trek: The Original Series. Antonio also starred in two short-lived television series: Dog and Cat, in which he played Sergeant Jack Ramsey in 1977, and Makin' It, in which he played Joseph Manucci in 1979.

Antonio transitioned into television directing and worked extensively in that capacity. His directing credits include The Flying Nun, The Young Rebels, Banacek, The Partridge Family, The Rockford Files, Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, Picket Fences, American Gothic, Party of Five, Dawson's Creek, Chicago Hope, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and The West Wing. His final directing work was on Boston Legal in 2007.

Antonio was married to fellow Actors Studio member Lane Bradbury, and the couple had two daughters before divorcing in 1980. Their daughter Elkin Antoniou is a writer, director, and award-winning documentarian. Antonio's elder brother, James Antonio, and sister-in-law, Hilda Brawner, are also actors.