Robert Quarry

Robert Walter Quarry (November 3, 1925 – February 20, 2009) was an American actor born in Fresno, California, to Mable (née Shoemaker) Quarry and Paul Quarry, a doctor. His grandmother worked as an actress. Quarry left school at fourteen to pursue a career in radio.

In November 1943, during World War II, Quarry enlisted in the United States Army, where he organized and participated in a theatrical troupe. Following the war, he resumed acting, working first with RKO and then with MGM. His stage work brought him to Broadway between 1950 and 1951, where he appeared in productions of The Taming of the Shrew and As You Like It.

Over the following decades, Quarry accumulated a range of television credits in supporting roles. He appeared in two episodes of The Lone Ranger, made two guest appearances on Perry Mason in 1965, and had a role in an episode of The Rockford Files. After more than twenty years in supporting capacities across film and television, Quarry transitioned to leading roles in horror films with Count Yorga, Vampire in 1970 and its sequel, The Return of Count Yorga, in 1971.

His work in those films led to a relationship with American International Pictures, which signed him to a long-term contract with the intention of positioning him as their primary horror star, a role previously held by Vincent Price. Quarry appeared alongside Price in AIP's Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972), playing alchemist Dr. Biederbeck, a character racing against Price's Phibes to locate a mythical elixir of eternal life. The two were paired again in Madhouse (1974), the final AIP film to feature Price. Quarry also appeared in The Deathmaster (1973), playing a vampire character named Khorda, and in the 1974 blaxploitation-zombie film Sugar Hill, in which he played a gangster.

Several factors disrupted Quarry's trajectory at AIP, including the departure of company co-founder James H. Nicholson and business manager Paul Zimmerman, a decline in the studio's financial fortunes that led to lower-budget productions, and a broader drop in the popularity of traditional horror films. Quarry subsequently returned to supporting work in film and television. He appeared in one episode of The Lost Saucer in 1975 and played disfigured gunrunner Commander Corliss in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode "Return of the Fighting 69th" in 1979.

In 1980, Quarry was struck by a drunk driver in an automobile accident that caused serious facial injuries. He was also mugged in Hollywood around the same period. He returned to film in 1987 with Cyclone, directed by Fred Olen Ray, and went on to appear in more than twenty of Ray's subsequent productions. Quarry died on February 20, 2009, at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 83.