Robert Walker Jr.

• Date of Birth:

  15 April 1940 New York City, New York, USA

As the son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker Jr. certainly had the right pedigree to make the grade in Hollywood. Born at Queens Hospital on April 14, 1940, he experienced severe emotional upheavals in his childhood. His parents separated when Robert was only three, and at age 9 his stepfather became the powerful film mogul David O. Selznick who by this time had already taken firm control of his mother's career. His mother suffered a miscarriage in 1950 and his severely depre... more

As the son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker Jr. certainly had the right pedigree to make the grade in Hollywood. Born at Queens Hospital on April 14, 1940, he experienced severe emotional upheavals in his childhood. His parents separated when Robert was only three, and at age 9 his stepfather became the powerful film mogul David O. Selznick who by this time had already taken firm control of his mother's career. His mother suffered a miscarriage in 1950 and his severely depressed father, who had never recovered from losing his wife, died a year later at age 32 of respiratory failure after suffering an acute reaction to a prescriptive sedative. Neither his mother nor Robert Jr. attended the funeral.Despite those setbacks, Walker Jr. began assuredly enough training at the Actors' Studio in the early 1960s. He also married wife Ellie Wood in the early 60s and they had three children. Walker Jr. preferred to find his own place in the entertainment field and tried to avoid the obvious comparisons, but his startling resemblance to his late father made it extremely difficult for film audiences to separate the two. He started his film career in good company and with two strong roles in The Hook (1963), a morality story set during the Korean war starring Kirk Douglas and Nick Adams, and The Ceremony (1963) in which he received a Golden Globe Award for "promising newcomer" as Laurence Harvey's brother. Walker Jr. also worked on TV and earned a Theatre World Award for his two 1964 off-Broadway roles in "I Knock at the Door" and "Pictures in the Hallway."Of slight build and boyishly handsome, Robert seemed on his way when he was handed the biggest challenge of his film career taking over Jack Lemmon's Oscar-winning role as Ensign Pulver (1964) in the sequel to the popular service comedy Mister Roberts (1955). Unfortunately, his comparison to Lemmon paled significantly and the script had neither the charm nor wit of its predecessor. The film and Walker were torpedoed by the reviewers and Walker lost major ground in Hollywood. Despite his obvious talent, his subsequent films lacked the quality and promise of his first two, which included The Happening (1967), The Savage Seven (1968), Killers Three (1968) and the title role in Young Billy Young (1969) starring Robert Mitchum. He and his wife Ellie appeared in lesser roles in the hit cult film Easy Rider (1969) and he delved into pure exploitation with The Man from O.R.G.Y. (1970), Hex (1973) and the title role in The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe (1974).In later years, Walker Jr. maintained on TV episodics, his final appearances occurring in 1991 with "L.A. Law" and "In the Heat of the Night." His younger brother (by a year) Michael Walker has also been an actor.