Biographie
Executive Producer Robert J. Locke, Jr., produced the first Olympic freestyle Wrestling documentary in history, "Journey Into Freestyle Wrestling", which premiered at the AFM in 2004. At the time, there was only one other movie about real wrestling, "Vision Quest". To date, there are 30+ films and documentaries about real wrestling.
Robert produced and starred as Father O'Neal in the "cult classic" Legend of Bloody Mary" directed by John Stecenko, and distributed by Lionsgate & Grindstone on Amazon Prime.
Robert is putting the finishing touches on his men's and women's freestyle Wrestling documentary "Legends of USA Wrestling" with Olympic Gold Medalist & 15-time NCAA Champion Coach of Iowa Dan Gable, UFC Champ & Pan Am Games Champ Daniel Cormier, Olympic Gold Medalist Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum played Mark in the critically acclaimed "Fox Catcher", 2014), 3-time World Champ Lee Kemp, All Navy Champ Donald Rumsfeld, Olympic Gold Medalist and 4-time NCAA Champ/Wheaties Box cover man/5-time NCAA Wrestling Coach Cael Sanderson, and 2-time Olympian/World Silver Medalist/ former Coach of Stanford/current coach of Univ. of Maryland Kerry McCoy. Robert has been a volunteer filmmaker for the US National Freestyle Wrestling Men's and Women's teams since 2003.
In 2013, Robert created/wrote/co-directed/produced & starred in the ensemble comedy web series "Schoooled" starring top comedian Judy Tenuta, Trilby Glover, Seamus O'Brien, Bergen Williams, and Kent Boyd.
Trailers for Robert's work are on YouTube, "Lionsgate Legend of Bloody Mary", "Schoooled", "Journey into freestyle wrestling", and "One Long Day", starring Frank Bello of heavy metal band Anthrax, former top models Tully Jensen & TV star Jason Olive.
Robert started his production company August Sun Productions in 1997, and has produced & directed the feature films "The Family Web" (Finalist Award 2000 Zoie International Film Festival}, and "One Long Day" (official selection 2004 Philadelphia Documentary and Fiction Festival). He also directed & produced "Scots In America" in 2004, exploring the first Scottish Day Parade in New York City. In 2007 Robert produced Agroecology: the study of organic farming with a few top scientists in the field. Community gardens are a serious means to solve world food problems and healthy people.
Robert co-founded The Bliss St. Repertory Theatre company in New York City in 1992 and has directed & produced more than eight plays off Broadway, and 12 plays off-off Broadway.
Previously, Robert directed the dark comedy "The House of Yes" at the Nextstage theatre in Hollywood, and LA Weekly said of the play, "The acting was uniformly good under Robert Locke's deft direction."
Robert began acting in the 5th grade, and he is grateful to his parents for encouraging him to follow his dream. By the time he was in the 8th grade, Robert had starred in 5 musicals and played a student in the horror film "My Demon Lover" in 1984. He studied Method Acting in the BFA program at Central Connecticut State University, and moved to New York City three months after graduating to study with the best acting teachers in the business, including Herbert Burghoff studio, Michael Howard studio and William Esper studio. After interning at the top off Broadway theater company in the world circle repertory company, Robert starting making plans to start his own Theater company. Circle repertory company was founded by Pulitzer prize winning playwright, Landford, Wilson, and actress Tanya Berezin. Actors such as William Hurt, John Turturro, Mary Louise Parker, Alec Baldwin in many many more got their start at circle repertory company.
Robert has his MFA in Film & TV Producing from Mount Saint Mary's University. He was a Massachusetts State freestyle wrestling champ and earned a wrestling scholarship to college where he began studying acting in the BFA program at CCSU.
The biggest joys of his life are his daughters Jemma, and Olivia.
