Richard Hatch (actor)

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This article is about the actor. For the Survivor contestant, see Richard Hatch (reality TV).

Richard Hatch (b. May 21, 1945 in Santa Monica, California) is an American actor best known for his role of Captain Apollo on the original Battlestar Galactica movie and television series, for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination. He began his theatrical career with the Los Angeles Repertory Theater. He starred off-Broadway in several plays and musicals and won the Obie Award for his work in PS Your Cat Is Dead in Chicago. He also has appeared in the American soap operas All My Children and Santa Barbara. He is currently in a recurring role as Tom Zarek in the second version of Battlestar Galactica.

Before Battlestar Galactica, he replaced Michael Douglas in The Streets of San Francisco and won Germany's Bravo Award (the equivalent of an Emmy Award) for the role. He has also starred in such movies as The Hatfields and The McCoys with Jack Palance, Addie and The Kings Of Hearts with Jason Robards, Last Of The Belles with Susan Sarandon, and the cult classic Deadman's Curve where he portrayed Jan Berry of the musical group Jan and Dean. Hatch can also be heard in numerous television commercials and other voice-overs.

Richard Hatch as Tom Zarek

He is the co-author of seven Battlestar Galactica novels and wrote, co-directed and executive-produced a Battlestar Galactica trailer that won acclaim at science-fiction conventions. He produced the trailer to pressure Universal into creating a new series of Battlestar Galactica that would have been a direct continuation of the original series. Original actors John Colicos (Baltar) and Jack Stauffer (Bojay) appeared in the trailer along with Hatch himself. It is presumed that the actors would have appeared in the series itself. Hatch also believed that he could persuade Dirk Benedict to return and play Starbuck.

However, Battlestar Galactica returned to television screens as a re-imagining, rather than the sequel for which Hatch had campaigned. Initially, Hatch was bitterly disappointed by this turn of events and was highly critical of the prospective new series on his web site. However, Hatch developed a respect for Ronald D. Moore, the new series' producer, when he appeared as a featured guest at Galacticon (the Battlestar Galactica 20th annniversary convention, hosted by Hatch) and answered questions posed by a very hostile audience. In 2003, he was offered and accepted a recurring role in the new Battlestar Galactica series. He plays Tom Zarek, a terrorist turned politician, who spent twenty years in prison for blowing up a government building. In an irony probably intended by the show's producers, Hatch/Zarek spends most of his first episode in heated debate with Captain Apollo, the role that Hatch had played in the original series. He had a recurring role in seasons 1 and 2, and has returned for season 3.

Hatch is in pre-production of his own space opera, The Great War of Magellan, and has written a comic book series and role-playing game in support. He is presently working a novel trilogy for The Great War of Magellan with his Battlestar Galactica co-author, Brad Linaweaver.

When not acting, Richard lectures and conducts workshops on acting, self-expression, and communication throughout the world.