Radames Pera

Radames Pera was born in New York City in 1960. He moved to Hollywood with his mother in 1963 so she could pursue an acting career. In 1967 Radames was "discovered" by director Daniel Mann and cast as Stavros, the dying son of Anthony Quinn and Irene Papas, in A Dream of Kings (1969). He got an agent and he ended up guest-starring in many TV shows in the late '60s and throughout the '70s. Due to typecasting, and because he could "deliver the emotional goods" he portrayed a variety of troubled boys and young men. This reputation led to his landing the co-starring role of "Grasshopper" (the Young Caine) in the seminal TV series Kung Fu (1972) and later as the writer/poet John Jr. (and fiancé of Mary Ingalls) in Little House on the Prairie (1974). In the summer of 1978 Radames began a three-year intensive study of acting and directing with Stella Adler, first in L.A. and then in New York City. While in New York he played Alan Bates' estranged son in the British feature Very Like a Whale (1980). After returning to L.A. in 1981 he discovered the painful reality that so many child actors face: the almost impossible transition to an adult acting career (very different from this era of the paparazzi/E! mill). His last feature film role was with Charlie Sheen, Patrick Swayze and Lea Thompson as Russian radar tracking Sgt. Stepan Gorsky in John Milius' Red Dawn (1984). His last TV role was as a Nazi vigilante youth-gang leader in Mike Hammer (1984) opposite Stacy Keach in 1986. In 1988 he started his own business designing and installing home theater and residential sound systems in Los Angeles working for several superstars (Depp, Cage, Downey, Jr., Theron, Stiller, and others. In 1993 he moved that business to Portland, Oregon for 10 years. He then lived in Austin, TX between 2004 and 2012 and continues in the same profession after moving to San Diego that same year - in between short filmmaking, surfing, and writing his memoirs. Show less «