Richard Kinard Sanders (born August 23, 1940) is an American actor and
screenwriter. He is best known for playing quirky news anchorman Les
Nessman on the CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati (1978â€"1982).Sanders was
born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the son of Thelma S. and Henry
Irvine Sanders. After graduating from Leavenworth High School in
Leavenworth, Kansas, he was enrolled in the Fine Arts Department at
Carnegie Institute of Technology (now known as Carnegie Mellon
University) as an acting major from 1958 to 1962. There he was a
classmate of René Auberjonois and Aubrey Wilson, among others.After
graduation, Sanders studied Shakespearean theatre in England on a
Fulbright Scholarship, and served a stint with the Peace Corps in the
states of Paraiba and Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.Sanders joined
Gordon Jump and Frank Bonner in reprising his original WKRP role on
The New WKRP in Cincinnati in the early 1990s. He has guest-appeared
on other television shows, including Lou Grant, Kojak, The Rockford
Files, Alice, Newhart, Murder, She Wrote, Designing Women, and
Married... with Children, and has also acted in the mini-series Roots:
The Next Generations, the animated series Inhumanoids, the horror film
Lovers Lane, and the Robert De Niro/Cuba Gooding Jr. film Men of
Honor.
screenwriter. He is best known for playing quirky news anchorman Les
Nessman on the CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati (1978â€"1982).Sanders was
born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the son of Thelma S. and Henry
Irvine Sanders. After graduating from Leavenworth High School in
Leavenworth, Kansas, he was enrolled in the Fine Arts Department at
Carnegie Institute of Technology (now known as Carnegie Mellon
University) as an acting major from 1958 to 1962. There he was a
classmate of René Auberjonois and Aubrey Wilson, among others.After
graduation, Sanders studied Shakespearean theatre in England on a
Fulbright Scholarship, and served a stint with the Peace Corps in the
states of Paraiba and Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.Sanders joined
Gordon Jump and Frank Bonner in reprising his original WKRP role on
The New WKRP in Cincinnati in the early 1990s. He has guest-appeared
on other television shows, including Lou Grant, Kojak, The Rockford
Files, Alice, Newhart, Murder, She Wrote, Designing Women, and
Married... with Children, and has also acted in the mini-series Roots:
The Next Generations, the animated series Inhumanoids, the horror film
Lovers Lane, and the Robert De Niro/Cuba Gooding Jr. film Men of
Honor.
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