Saxon was born Carmine Orrico in Brooklyn, New York in 1936. Although he attended acting schools in Manhattan, it was a photo that got the attention of an agent and a contract with Universal Studios at the young age of seventeen.

There were uncredited walk-ons in two 1954 films, It Should Happen To You and A Star Is Born, but Saxon's first real screen role was in The Unguarded Moment (1956).

Saxon was a heartthrob and worked constantly, appearing in John Huston's The Unforgiven and the big screen soap Portrait In Black, both in 1960.

Did he realize when he made The Girl Who Knew Too Much in 1963 for Mario Bava that the horror genre would take up a nice portion of his resume? Probably not. The Night Caller was released two years later.

By the seventies, Saxon was one of the hardest working people in the business. The role of Lt. Fuller in Black Christmas fit him like a glove, and he would again play police officers in Blood Beach (1981), A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984), and two of its sequels, Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and New Nightmare (1994).

He was put to good use as a novelist's agent in Dario Argento's Unsane (1982), but perhaps one of his best roles was in Cannibal Apocalypse (1980) in which he played a doomed war vet who develops a taste for human flesh after his stint in Vietnam. Saxon was entirely believable...even as the story gets gorier and heads towards its downbeat conclusion.

All in all, Saxon has appeared in well over 100 feature films and over 250 television appearances. It's hard to believe this still vibrant, busy actor has been in the business for over 45 years.

NOTABLE SAXON FILMS	YEAR
The Bees	1978
Beyond Evil	1980
Black Christmas	1974
Blood Beach	1981
Cannibal Apocalypse	1980
The Girl Who Knew Too Much	1963
The Night Caller	1965
A Nightmare on Elm Street	1984
Queen of Blood	1966
Scorpion with Two Tails	1982
Tenebre	1982