John Saxon, the talented actor who played Lt. Thomspon in the first and third Nightmare on Elm Street and himself in Wes Craven's New Nightmare, has by far the most experience out of any of the Nightmare on Elm Street cast members. He has been acting in movies since 1954 and has appeared in over 80 of them, along with appearances on over 200 episodes of T.V. shows.

John was born on August 5, 1936 in Brooklyn, New York, under the name of Carmine Orrico. When he turned seventeen, he went to Los Angeles, where he recieved a Universal Studios Stock Cotract. He was soon publicized as a "teenage heart throb," based on his roles in such films as Rock Pretty Baby, Summer Love, and The Reluctant Debutante.

Over the next few decades, John starred in many films and explored his talents as a character actor. Some of his more famous films from his pre-Nightmare on Elm Street years include The Unforgiven, The Appaloosa, Death of a Gunfighter, Enter the Dragon, and Blood Beach.

In 1984, John landed the role of Lt. Donald Thompson in A Nightmare on Elm Street, a role that would last for two more films to come. He says, "What Wes was attempting in the first Nightmare was an art-house film without the pretentious qualities. It had the notion of truth being inside dreams, and it had a wonderful mixture of bizarre plot and special effects."

He also says, "I thought the theme of the first Nightmare was that the 'unconscious,' the world inside of us that comes out in dreams, has a reality that is equal to waking everyday external reality and that appealed to me quite a bit personally. The movie I thought turned out extremely well; better than I imagined, because I didn't know any of the people making it before."

In 1987, John took on the character of Lt. Thompson a second time for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, and in 1994, he portrayed himself and a little bit of Lt. Thomspon in Wes Craven's New Nightmare. He says, "I think I was portrayed 'alright'... not a John Saxon biography or a portrait."

Since A Nightmare on Elm Street, John has continued to appear in many films and T.V. shows. Some of his more recent roles include parts in such films as Maximum Force, Animal Instincts, Beverly Hills Cop III, and a cameo in From Dusk Till Dawn. John has also appeared on such T.V. shows as The A-Team, Murder, She Wrote, Matlock, and Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.

If you would like to contact John Saxon, go to his site on the Hollywood Actor's Network (there's a link at the bottom of this page). There you'll find a message board where you can post messages and get responses from John himself! You can even read what I wrote to him (Ref.'s 488 and 511)!

John Saxon is an extremely talented actor whose career has spanned over forty years. Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) says, "John Saxon represents a lot of acting history, and I get chills just being around him."