Biographie
Character actor John Davis Chandler was born on January 28, 1935, in Hinton, West Virginia, and grew up in Charleston, West Virginia. Tall and slender, with fair hair, piercing blue eyes, a pale complexion, and a distinctive nasal, whiny voice, Chandler was known for playing mean, neurotic, and dangerous villains. He made a notable film debut with his only starring role as the titular sniveling, psychotic, homicidal gangster in Mad Dog Coll (1961). He appeared in three Westerns directed by Sam Peckinpah and is especially memorable—and chilling—as the eerie Jimmy Hammond in the acclaimed Ride the High Country (1962). He gave a strong performance as the vicious punk Arthur Reardon in The Young Savages (1961). Chandler also delivered a memorably loathsome role as a brutal bushwhacker in the eerie horror-Western The Shadow of Chikara (1977), and had a notable part as a bounty hunter in Clint Eastwood's excellent The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). He even portrayed a somewhat heroic character in Peckinpah's Major Dundee (1965).
Chandler appeared in three entertaining drive-in exploitation films directed by William Grefé: at his wackiest as the crazed, drug-addled Acid in The Hooked Generation (1968), a ruthless shark poacher in the Jaws (1975) imitation Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976), and an evil marijuana cultivator in Whiskey Mountain (1977). His numerous television guest appearances included Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993), Walker, Texas Ranger (1993), Chicago Hope (1994), ER (1994), Simon & Simon (1981), Hunter (1984), Murder, She Wrote (1984), Hill Street Blues (1981), T.J. Hooker (1982), Fantasy Island (1977), The Incredible Hulk (1977), Police Woman (1974), Gunsmoke (1955), Adam-12 (1968), The Fugitive (1963), Combat! (1962), The Rifleman (1958), Route 66 (1960), and The Virginian (1962). Offscreen, he was a dedicated yoga practitioner. Chandler passed away at age 75 on February 16, 2010, in Toluca Lake, California.
