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Andrew Robinson

Andrew Robinson has built a career around characters who rarely reveal everything at once. Born in New York City on February 14, 1942, he initially intended to become a journalist, earning a degree in English from The New School for Social Research. A Fulbright Scholarship took him to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and his professional career began on the New York stage as both an actor and playwright. His first feature-film role proved unusually difficult to escape. In Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry, Robinson played the Scorpio Killer, bringing a disturbing mix of cruelty, nervous energy and dark humour to the film’s antagonist. The performance gave him widespread exposure, but its effectiveness also led to years of typecasting as unstable or threatening characters. Robinson later appeared in Siegel’s Charley Varrick and opposite Paul Newman in The Drowning Pool, while television offered a broader range of work. From 1976 to 1978, he played Frank Ryan on Ryan’s Hope, receiving a Daytime Emmy nomination, and in 1988 he took the title role in a television biopic about Liberace. Horror audiences know Robinson from Hellraiser, his first lead role in a feature film, where he played Larry Cotton and, later, Frank Cotton wearing Larry’s skin. Science-fiction fans know him just as strongly as Elim Garak, the Cardassian tailor and former intelligence operative on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Garak’s ambiguity, dry comedy and carefully guarded history made particularly good use of Robinson’s ability to suggest several motives at once. He returned to the role in Star Trek: Lower Decks in 2024. Robinson’s work also extends behind the camera and onto the page. He directed episodes of Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager and Judging Amy, and wrote the Garak novel A Stitch in Time in 2000. Alongside his film, television and stage work, he has also worked as a professor. It is a varied career, but the connecting thread is clear: Robinson has consistently been drawn to performance as craft, whether acting, directing, teaching or writing his way further into a character.