Actor. Born in Waycross, Georgia, he began entertaining during his high school years, singing at area USO shows. He briefly attended Georgia Tech and the University of Maryland (without graduating), and served in the United States Marine Corps. He first achieved notable acting recognition during the mid-1950s, appearing in a string of off-Broadway Shakespeare plays, beginning with "Macbeth" (for which he received a Drama Desk Award, 1955), also including "Romeo and Juliet" and "The Taming of the Shrew". He made his Broadway debut in the short-lived play "Tonight in Samarkand" (1955), and made the transition to the small screen with guest appearances on such programs as "Trackdown" and "Have Gun- Will Travel". It would be the role of 'Adam Cartwright' in the popular long-running television western series "Bonanza", which made Roberts identifiable at that point in his career. He left the cast in 1965, remaining busy with guest appearances in a wide range of television programs throughout the 1960s and 1970s including "The Wild, Wild West", "Mission: Impossible", "Hawaii Five-O", "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Rockford Files". His second most identifiable part was the title role in the television medical drama "Trapper John, M.D." (1979 to 1986), for which he earned an Emmy Award nomination.