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Simon Oakland (August 28, 1915 – August 29, 1983) was an American actor of stage, screen, and television.
During his career, Oakland performed primarily on television, appearing in over 130 series and made-for-television movies between 1951 and 1983. His most notable big-screen roles were in Psycho (1960), West Side Story (1961), The Sand Pebbles (1966), Bullitt (1968), The Hunting Party (1971), and Chato's Land (1972). On television, he was a regular on the cult classic horror series (1974-1975), and the military drama Baa Baa Black Sheep (1976-1978)
He began his performing arts career as a musician (he was a , an avocation he pursued during his entire career as an actor). Oakland began his acting career in the late 1940s. He enjoyed a series of Broadway hits, including Light Up the Sky, The Shrike, and Inherit the Wind, and theater was one of his lasting passions. He was a concert violinist until the 1940s.
Oakland's notable performance in I Want to Live! led to his playing a long series of tough-guys, either as authority figures or villains or a mix of both. He appeared in Psycho as the psychiatrist who, at the end of the film, explains Norman Bates's multiple personality disorder. He appeared in the films West Side Story, The Sand Pebbles, and Bullitt.
He made two guest appearances as murder victims on CBS's Perry Mason. He appeared in the syndicated crime drama, Decoy, starring Beverly Garland. Oakland appeared once on the CBS Western Dundee and the Culhane and once on the series Sheriff of Cochise. He was also a regular, in a comedic supporting role, as General Thomas Moore, on NBC's Baa Baa Black Sheep, starring Robert Conrad. He appeared in two episodes of the original The Twilight Zone TV series (“The Rip Van Winkle Caper” and “The Thirty-Fathom Grave”) and in The Outer Limits as the alien birdman in "Second Chance". In 1974 and 1975, he was a series regular on , playing newspaper editor Tony Vincenzo. (He had previously played the same character in two made-for-television movies.
During the 1970s, Oakland appeared in multiple episodes of The Rockford Files, three times as blustery private detective Vern St. Cloud, a nemesis/ antagonist for Jim Rockford, as well as five single-character appearances on Hawaii Five-O from the first to the eighth season .
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