Actor Barry Nelson died 7 April 2007. Born Robert Haakon Nielsen in San Francisco on 16 April 1920, he was a stage and screen actor with many credits, but he’ll probably be best remembered as “the first actor to play James Bond.” He appeared in a 1954 episode of the television series Climax! which was entitled “Casino Royale,” and was the first on-screen appearance of Ian Fleming’s superspy.
Nelson appeared in a number of other genre television productions, including: The Twilight Zone (in the episode “Stopover in a Quiet Town” in 1964), Ghost Story, the original Battlestar Galactica, Salvage 1, the original Fantasy Island, and Monsters.
His genre movie appearances include: A Guy Named Joe (1943) and The Shining (1980).