Jerry Hardin

Early life

Jerry Hardin was born in Dallas on November 20, 1929. His father was a rancher, and Jerry spent his youth actively involved with his local church and performing in school plays. He attended Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, on a scholarship before going on to study at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, earning a scholarship there through the Fulbright Program. He spent several years there before returning to the United States to begin acting in New York, performing in regional theatre for twelve years.

Career

Hardin began acting on television in the 1950s, mostly in character roles. He amassed over a hundred appearances by the early 1990s, in addition to more than seventy-five theatrical credits by the early 1960s. His television appearances include roles in the 1976 western series Sara, World War III, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, Sliders, and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Several of Hardin's cinematic roles include the films Thunder Road (1958), Our Time (1974),The Rockford Files (1977), Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979), 1941 (1979), Reds (1981), Missing (1982), Tempest (1982), Honkytonk Man (1982), Cujo (1983), Mass Appeal (1984), Warning Sign (1985), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Let's Get Harry (1986), Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987), Little Nikita (1988), The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), Blaze (1989), The Hot Spot (1990), The Firm (1993).

Deep Throat

His role in 1993's The Firm won Hardin the attention of television writer Chris Carter, who cast him in the recurring role of Deep Throat in the series The X-Files. Hardin believed his initial appearance in the second episode of the first season, airing on September 17, 1993, would be a one-time role, but he soon found himself regularly commuting to the series' Vancouver filming location on short notice. After filming the character's death in the first season finale, "The Erlenmeyer Flask", Hardin was toasted with champagne, and told by Carter that "no one ever really dies on X-Files". As such, Hardin made several more appearances as Deep Throat after this—seen in visions in the third season's "The Blessing Way" and the seventh season's "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati", in flashbacks in the fourth season's "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man", and as one of the guises assumed by a shapeshifting alien in the third season's finale, "Talitha Cumi".

Personal

Hardin is married, with two children. His wife Diane (née Hill) is an acting coach. Despite Hardin's claim that he "did my best to discourage my own children from doing it", his daughter Melora Hardin is also an actress, known for roles as Trudy Monk in Monk and Jan Levenson in The Office, and his son Shawn Hardin works for television studio NBC. Hardin currently resides in the United States.