Norman Burton, occasionally credited as Normann Burton, was an American film and television actor. Born in New York City, Burton was a student of The Actor's Studio. After early work on stage, he broke into films with a minor role in Fright. His career in film and television was long and relatively successful, but he never achieved major recognition. He played the Hunt Leader, a gorilla, in the science fiction film Planet of the Apes, notable as being the first ape to be seen by both Taylor and the audience. In film, he is perhaps best known for his unconventional performance as Felix Leiter in the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever. He played Will Giddings, an ill fated engineer, in the action film The Towering Inferno. On television, he is best known for his performance as Inter-Agency Defense Command's supervisor Joe Atkinson during the second season of the DC Comics-based fantasy drama series The New Adventures of Wonder Woman starring Lynda Carter. He also played Burt Dennis in the situation comedy The Ted Knight Show in the spring of 1978. Throughout his life, Burton was a devotee of the method school of acting, and taught method acting in Lakeside, California. [More at Wikipedia]

December 5th, 1923 in New York City  /  Died:   Nov 29th, 2003