Richard Sanders

Richard Kinard Sanders (born August 23, 1940) is an American actor. Best known for playing the quirky news anchorman Les Nessman on the television sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Sanders was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the son of Thelma S. and Henry Irvine Sanders. He was enrolled in the Fine Arts Department at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now known as Carnegie Mellon University) as an acting major from 1958-62. There he was a classmate of... more

Richard Kinard Sanders (born August 23, 1940) is an American actor. Best known for playing the quirky news anchorman Les Nessman on the television sitcom, WKRP in Cincinnati. Sanders was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the son of Thelma S. and Henry Irvine Sanders. He was enrolled in the Fine Arts Department at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now known as Carnegie Mellon University) as an acting major from 1958-62. There he was a classmate of Rene Auberjonois and Aubrey Wilson, among others. After graduation,Sanders studied Shakespearean theatre in England on a Fulbright Scholarship, and served a stint with the Peace Corps in Brazil. Sanders joined Gordon Jump and Frank Bonner in reprising his original WKRP role on The New WKRP in Cincinnati in the early 1990s. He has guest appeared on other television shows, including Lou Grant, Kojak, The Rockford Files, Alice, Newhart, Murder, She Wrote and Married...with Children, and has also acted in the mini-series "Roots: The Next... less