Lou Antonio

Lou Antonio
Credits
Role	Harry Simmons
Biographical Information
Birth Name	Louis Demetrios Antoniou
Birthdate	January 23, 1934
Birthplace	Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States

Lou Antonio played Harry Simmons, a chimpanzee whom Samantha transformed into a human being, in the fifth season episode, "Going Ape".

Biography

Lou Antonio is an American actor and television director. He was born Louis Demetrios Antoniou on January 23, 1934 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He is English-French-German on his mother's side and Greek on his father's side. His older brother is the actor and stuntman Jim Antonio.

Lou Antonio was a talented baseball player as a teenager. He was scouted by the Boston Red Sox while in high school, but an injury ended his dreams of playing professional baseball. He attended Oklahoma University on a journalism scholarship and graduated with a degree in French, all the while acting in school plays.

He was accepted into the Actors Studio in 1958 and studied under Lee Strasberg. He was a professional actor through much of the 1960s, doing summer stock, plays, guest roles on television series, and a few films.

He made his Broadway debut in Félicien Marceau's play The Good Soup on March 2, 1960. In 1963, still on Broadway, he played Gaston in an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas, fils, The Lady of Camelias, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, and Marvin Macy in Edward Albee's play The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, based on the story by Carson McCullers.

In the mid-1960s, he moved to Hollywood and focused his career primarily as a television actor, sometimes appearing in multiple episodes of the same series, as different characters. He has appeared in fifty series, including Naked City, Play of the Week, Route 66, The Defenders, Camera Three, Gunsmoke, The Virginian, 12 O'Clock High, The Fugitive, The Monkees, I Dream of Jeannie, Bonanza, Here Come the Brides, The Flying Nun, Mod Squad, Dan August, Hawaii Five-0, Mission: Impossible, Cannon, Night Gallery, The Snoop Sisters, The Rookies, and Makin' It.

He was best known for his role as Lokai in Star Trek episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" (1969). In 2016, SyFy ranked guest stars Frank Gorshin and Lou Antonio (as Bele and Lokai, the black and white aliens), the tenth best guest stars on the original Star Trek series.

Lou Antonio's film credits included Elia Kazan's 1963 America America, George Roy Hill's 1966 Hawaii, Stuart Rosenberg's 1967 Cool Hand Luke, and Michael Pressman's 2003 Frankie and Johnny Are Married.

As a director, Antonio started his career in the late 1960s and has worked exclusively in television. He guided episodes of many series, including Gentle Ben, Here Comes the Brides, The Flying Nun, Getting Together, Banacek, Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law, The Partridge Family, McCloud, The Rockford Files, Mc Millan & Wife, The Cosby Mysteries, Picket Fences, American Gothic, Dawson's Creek, Party of Five, Chicago Hope, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The Guardian, and Boston Legal. He has also directed numerous television movies.

He has been nominated three times for an Emmy: in 1978, for Outstanding Directing in a Special Program - Drama or Comedy for the television film Something for Joey; in 1979, for Outstanding Directing in a Limited Series or a Special for television movie Silent Victory: The Kitty O'Neil Story, and in 1995 for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Directing for a Drama Series for Chicago Hope first season, episode fourteen, "Life Support". In 1994, he was also nominated by Directors Guild of America for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series - Night for Picket Fences second season, episode five, "The Dancing Bandit".

He married actress Lane Bradbury in the 1960s. They have two daughters, Elkin and Angelique. The couple divorced in 1980.

Sources

• Lou Antonio on the Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on January 27, 2025. Updated on February 3, 2025.
• Lou Antonio on Wikipedia. Retrieved on February 3, 2025.