Updated: November 12, 2023

Robert Hudson Walker Jr. ( April 15, 1940 to December 5, 2019 ) was an American actor who was a familiar presence on television in the 1960s and early 1970s. He became less active in later decades.

Walker was born in Queens, New York and was the elder son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones. He attended The Lawrenceville School near Princeton before beginning his acting career.

Walker studied Tai Chi Chuan under Marshall Ho'o, a skill which he later exhibited in his role in the movie Easy Rider.

Walker appeared in films and television from the early 1960s onwards. His movies include the title role in Ensign Pulver ( 1964 ) with Burl Ives and Walter Matthau; The War Wagon ( 1967 ) with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas; the title role in Young Billy Young, alongside Robert Mitchum; Easy Rider ( both 1969 ), and Beware! The Blob, or Son of Blob ( 1972 ). He featured in Angkor: Cambodia Express ( 1982 ) with Nancy Kwan, Christopher George, Woody Strode, and Sorapong Chatree.

In the 1960s, Walker appeared in the television series Route 66 ( "Across Walnuts and Wine", 1962 ). He played the title role and an emotionally disturbed character who was a troubled actor who lived and performed on the streets and in circuses, in Naked City episode "Dust Devil on a Quiet Street" (also 1962 ). In The Big Valley episode "My Son, My Son," ( 1965 ), Walker portrayed Evan Miles, an emotionally disturbed college dropout who becomes obsessed with childhood friend Audra Barkley.

Walker was cast role in the Star Trek episode "Charlie X" ( 1966 ) as Charles 'Charlie' Evans, a 17-year-old adolescent and social misfit with psychic powers. Walker appeared in the fifth season of the series Combat! in the episode "Ollie Joe" ( also 1966 ). In addition he had the title role in an episode of The Time Tunnel entitled "Billy the Kid" ( 1967 ). He also portrayed Nick Baxter, an ill alien who caused the deaths of humans by touch, in an episode of The Invaders ( "Panic", 1967 ). He played Mark Cole in an episode of Bonanza ( "The Gentle Ones", 1967 ).

In the 1970s, Walker had a role in an episode of Columbo ( "Mind Over Mayhem", 1974 ), and as an innocent longshoreman who takes the blame for a murder on Quincy, M.E. ( "The Hero Syndrome", 1977 ). He also appeared in the pilot episode of The Eddie Capra Mysteries ( 1978 ).

Walker maintained an episodic presence on television in the 1980s and 1990s. He guest-starred in two episodes of Murder, She Wrote with Angela Lansbury, the first time in "The Corpse Flew First Class" ( 1987 ), and as a mentally handicapped man in "Shear Madness" ( 1990 ). His last television performances were in L.A. Law and In the Heat of the Night, both in 1991. He also made a television series appearance in 1993 and had a small role in the film Beyond the Darkness ( 2016 ).