Steve Railsback

Steve Railsback is an American actor born on November 16, 1945, in Dallas, Texas, who has worked across theatre, film, and television. He trained under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, though he has noted that he found Strasberg exceptionally difficult to work with. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Railsback spent approximately ten years performing in theatre in New York City.

His Broadway career includes a 1975 appearance in The Skin of Our Teeth. His stage foundation in New York preceded a film debut in The Visitors, directed by Elia Kazan. Railsback became widely recognized for his portrayal of Charles Manson in the 1976 television miniseries Helter Skelter, a role that established him as a performer capable of inhabiting notorious real-life figures. He returned to that territory in 2000, playing Ed Gein in In the Light of the Moon, on which he also served as executive producer.

Among his other prominent screen credits, Railsback played Cameron opposite Peter O'Toole in The Stunt Man and took the role of astronaut Tom Carlsen in Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce. On television, he appeared as Duane Barry in two episodes of The X-Files and as Joseph Welch in the pilot episode of Supernatural. In 2008, he appeared in the science fiction and horror film Plaguers.