Radames Pera

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Radames Perá (born Radames Pera 14 September 1960) is an American actor who is best known for his role as the young Kwai Chang Caine in the 1972-1975 television series Kung Fu.

He was born in New York, New York and is the son of Eugene R. Perá, a renowned painter and originator of Spin Art, and Lisa Perá, a Russian-born actress. They moved to Los Angeles in 1963 so Lisa could pursue a Hollywood acting career, but the marriage suffered and they were shortly divorced. Lisa struggled as a single mother, working nights at the famous 1960s Hollywood night club, The Fog Cutter, while Radames stayed home alone. Their situation took an unexpected turn when Radames was discovered by director Daniel Mann for the role as Anthony Quinn's and Irene Papas' dying son in A Dream of Kings (1969). Lisa was up for the part of Quinn's mistress eventually played by the late Inger Stevens. Radames met the Director at a dinner party during pre-production on that film and was cast in the role of Stavros. Soon after that Radames got an agent and went on to play many serious roles in television and films. Radames was considered a young character actor and he was often cast to play the more unusual roles and ethnicities requiring a variety of looks and accents (Cuban, German-Jewish, Chinese-American, Italian, Russian) and handicaps (mute, schizophrenic, polio, plague, etc.)

Notable appearances include a recurring role as John, Jr. on the NBC series Little House on the Prairie and as the ill-fated boy in the Night Gallery episode, Silent Snow, Secret Snow narrated by Orson Welles. Campier roles include Alex in The Six Million Dollar Man and Don Ameche's son in Gidget Gets Married. Between 1969 and 1985 he guest-starred in numerous feature films and television shows including, Mickey Spillane's New Mike Hammer, Marcus Welby, M.D., Hawaii Five-O, and The Waltons. His last feature film role was as Sgt. Stepan Gorsky in John Milius' Red Dawn (1984) with the dubious honor of being executed by Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen.

In 1972, just before landing his role as Grasshopper in Kung Fu he began making his own Super8 films, first at the Barnsdall Junior Arts Center in Hollywood under the guidance of Hugh McKay, and then made a couple of 16mm shorts on his own. Acting was never his true calling; filmmking was, and there could be no better training than in the thick of the industry itself. This is the sole reason he pursued an acting career into his mid 20's - hoping to parlay it into directing.

He passed the High School Equivalency Test (GED) in 11th grade and spent what would have been his Senior year at Hollywood High enrolled at Los Angeles City College, studying Advanced Film courses, Economics, Philosophy and Color Photography. The following summer, Radames took his first acting lesson with the legendary Stella Adler, who came to Hollywood every summer to teacha that and abbreviated versions of her Script Breakdown technique, wooing a few actors from L.A. to study at her Conservatory in Manhattan.

Radames was struck by the profound approach to the craft of acting that Ms. Adler offered, so in the fall of 1978, at the protest of his L.A. agents, he moved to New York to study acting, directing, and Shakespeare with her for three years. Fellow classmates included Jeff Goldblum, Judd Nelson, and other Brat Packers.

Radames returned to Hollywood in the fall of 1981 to experience first hand Hollywood's notorious "short-term memory". On a Business level, his agents were absolutely right - having become in the interim "a former child actor" (an apparent stigma in Hollywood), The Business was essentially done with him, even though it seemed that he was just getting started in earnest as a serious actor. Instead, from a professional standpoint he was now dealing with being a "has been" at 21! His lengthy resume was more of a handicap than an asset, and it took a few years for him to figure this out - hitting the same glass ceiling that 99.9% of all child actors experience.

In that era there was no guidebook for dealing with this specialized predicament. Years later, thanks to the devoted advocacy of other former child actors like Paul Petersen, Patty Duke and others working in and around the Screen Actors Guild Young Performers Committee, there are some real legal protections and support-systems available to the transitioning young actor of today.

By the mid 1980s, Radames realized it was time to do something else both personally and professionally. He and his wife, Marsha Mann were wed on Leap Year Day in 1984, 6000 feet above the Mojave Desert - exchanging rings and vows in front of a judge and then jumping out of the plane on their first ever sky dive - calling the event "A Leap of Faith". Soon after that, Radames began developing his other interests in video and electronics and eventually formed his own company, All Systems Go! in Los Angeles in 1988, designing and installing home theaters and residential sound systems for the rich and famous (clients include Johnny Depp, Nicholas Cage, Ben Stiller, and Sharon Stone - to name a few.) Having built a successful career with his two hands, he reapproached filmmaking through another doorway; he and his wife formed a creative alliance with the L.A.-based performance-art-band, "Freshly Wrapped Candies". The couple toured extensively with the band creating and performing digitally manipulated live video images for many of the Candies' West Coast performances. Working exclusively with the Fairlight Video Instrument (CVI), a camera and an array of monitors and video projectors, they also produced an hour-long live performance video entitled "The Sheep of Things to Come" in 1990, with excerpts from several shows which was distributed by Modern Visual Communications (MVC) and Ralph Records, with whom the Candies had a recording contract.

These cutting edge shows and the videos that came from them were some of the best art Radames had ever produced to that point. The band broke up in the early '90s, and Radames had already been doing some more commercial work with the Fairlight producing digital video FX for Disney TV, a Max Headroom-like character on their network hit show Kids Incorporated as well as high-tech effects for the film Bulletproof with Gary Busey.

Through all of this, Radames kept desiging and installing home theaters, a career which ended up working out well to the present day. In 1993 he successfully relocated the company to Portland, OR. A decade later, seeking needed sunshine, the couple moved back to Southern California to the quaint seaside town of Ventura.

During this period (2002-2004) Radames became involved in advocacy for reformation of laws and regulations pertaining to child actors. Ventura being only an hour west of L.A., Radames reactivated his Screen Actors Guild membership on order to participate with prime advocate Paul Petersen and then President (fellow Little House On the Prairie alumnus) Melissa Gilbert in their Young Performers Committee. He attended monthly Committee meetings at SAG headquarters and often stayed into the evening to co-chair their Young Performers Orientation Seminars (with, among others, fellow former child actors Alison Arngrim and Johnny Whitaker) to provide essential professional and personal insights and survival advice to young people as well as their parents entering The Business - for whom no other practical information like this was readily available.

Radames' home theater design business pulled him into L.A. more often than he had wanted or expected, making the couple feel as if they had never moved away in the first place. After finishing one complex multi-zone A-V system for a client, Disney Animation producer, Jess Winfield, they decided to find another hip, less congested city with enough art, culture, and business activity (like Portland) but with the sunshine Ventura offered.

Austin, Texas rose to the top of the list and so they moved there in the Fall of 2004. Radames started up his same business again under the name "Get It Wired" and it has been running successfully there ever since. In June of 2008 he celebrates 20 years in the field of custom home entertainment.

Eastern philosophy seems to have left a lasting impression on Radames, though he does appear proud that Grasshopper has become, as he puts it, "an odd, disembodied cultural icon," referring to the fact that he often encounters people making references to that character without knowing it source or that he originated the role on network television, adding, "My character is famous, and fortunately I am not."