Brad Johnson

With his solid, All-American good looks and cowboy pedigree, Brad Johnson became a rising young actor in the late 1980s and early 90s in roles with a Western edge, particularly in the short-lived CBS series "Ned Blessing" and "Courthouse." In the former, he had the title role as a bandit-turned-sheriff in the Old West, while in the latter, he was a judge transferred to New York who carried a frontier sense of justice. Johnson, in fact, had been first noticed by a casting director while wrestling steers on the professional rodeo circuit. He earned his SAG card doing a beer commercial. Suggested to Steven Spielberg to play Ted Baker, the slightly dorky aspiring pilot and husband to Holly Hunter in "Always" (1989), Johnson helped snag the role by accidentally spilling his soda on the producer's shoes while auditioning. Feature roles in such films as "Flight of the Intruder" (1991) and "Philadelphia Experiment II" (1993) followed. In 1996, Johnson joined the cast of "Melrose Place" in the recurring role of an expert on child abuse who also romanced Jo (Daphne Zuniga). He returned the following year as the lead in the syndicated series "Soldier of Fortune, Inc." (retitled "S.O.F.: Special Ops Force" in 1998). Brad Johnson died on February 18, 2022 in Fort Worth, TX at the age of 62.