Jerry Hardin is a highly engaging, charismatic, and reliable character actor with a distinguished career spanning over half a century. Born on November 20, 1929, in Dallas, Texas, he was raised outside the city where he began acting in school productions, which would later lead to a scholarship to Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and a Fulbright scholarship to the Royal Academy for Dramatic Art in London.
With his first uncredited film role in the classic drive-in flick "Thunder Road" (1958) starring Robert Mitchum, Hardin went on to rack up an impressive amount of over 75 theatre credits by 1961. He became incredibly prolific in the 1970s, when his film career really took off, and he also started appearing regularly on TV series, including "Gunsmoke", "Starsky and Hutch", "The Streets of San Francisco", "Little House on the Prairie", "The Rockford Files", "Miami Vice", "L.A. Law", "Melrose Place", "Murder, She Wrote", and "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman".
One of his most memorable performances was as Mark Twain in episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987). He was also in high demand for film roles, appearing in the likes of "Wolf Lake", "Heartland", "1941", "Honky Tonk Freeway", "Reds", "Missing", "Honkytonk Man", "Cujo", "The Falcon and the Snowman", "Warning Sign", "Big Trouble in Little China", "Wanted: Dead or Alive", "The Hot Spot", "The Firm", "Ghosts of Mississippi", "Hidalgo", and "Are We There Yet?".
His performance as one of the subtly sinister senior partners in "The Firm" (1993) impressed "The X-Files" creator Chris Carter enough that Carter would create the character of "Deep Throat" with him in mind, and it's this role that is definitely one of Hardin's most famous. A noteworthy stage performance of his was in the play, "The Rainmaker", working alongside Jayne Atkinson, Woody Harrelson, and David Aaron Baker.
Hardin's wife is actress and acting teacher Diane Hardin, whose students have included Leonardo DiCaprio, Hilary Swank, Stephen Dorff, River Phoenix, Kellie Martin, and Christopher Masterson. His daughter is actress Melora Hardin, and his son Shawn Hardin was the chief operating officer, in-charge-of product, for NBC-1 in San Francisco.
