Robert Yuro(1932-2020)

Deep-voiced American supporting actor whose lean, chiselled features made him typecast as tough guys and colourful character villains in 1960s and 70s TV. A native New Yorker, Robert Anthony Yuro attended school in Brooklyn. Upon graduation, he joined the U.S. Air Force, eventually serving as an air traffic controller during the Korean War. After being demobbed, he did some off-Broadway acting on the New York stage (his only stint on Broadway was in a 1962 comedy play,"Venus at Large", which closed after just two nights). Yuro relocated to Los Angeles by the early 60s, where he went on to enjoy steady employment playing heavies in television westerns, science fiction and cop shows, including Death Valley Days (1952) (in one episode as western outlaw William "Curly Bill" Brocius), The Fugitive (1963), Laredo (1965), The Invaders (1967), The High Chaparral (1967), The F.B.I. (1965) and Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974).

In 1969, Yuro and Herb Evans opened Alice's Restaurant on 1043 Westwood Boulevard (its name inspired by Arlo Guthrie's iconic 1967 protest song). It closed in the 1990s. In 1972, they started a second restaurant on the pier at Malibu, patronised "by celebrities and surfers", which also closed in the mid-90s due to a dispute with the Department of Parks and Recreation over unpaid rent. Yuro left screen acting in 1984. He passed away in November 2020 in Los Angeles at the age of 88.