Robert Cleveland Johnson (May 4, 1920 – December 31, 1993) was an American

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lit ...

and voice actor who played supporting roles on series television and in films from the late 1950s until a few years before his death. Johnson is probably best known as the "voice behind the scenes", who gave Special Agents Dan Briggs and

Jim Phelps This is a list of recurring fictional characters in the '' Mission: Impossible'' franchise. Main and recurring characters The cast changed considerably episode-by-episode throughout the program's seven-year run, so not all of the characters l ...

their recorded mission briefings on both incarnations of the '' Mission: Impossible'' television series. The "Voice" was never identified by name, title or position, and was only heard in recordings, but nevertheless became one of the most iconic features of the show. Prior to his work on '' Mission: Impossible'', Johnson frequently provided the voices of numerous alien creatures on '' The Outer Limits''. He was uncredited for all, except for his work as the alien "Senator" in the episode " Fun And Games". He may have been involved in English-language dubbing on lesser-known

Spaghetti Western The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...

s. Johnson was born in Portland,

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

, and died at the age of seventy-three in

Molokai Molokai , or Molokai (), is the fifth most populated of the eight major islands that make up the Hawaiian Islands archipelago in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It is 38 by 10 miles (61 by 16 km) at its greatest length and width with a us ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

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* 1920 births 1993 deaths American male film actors American male television actors American male voice actors Male actors from Portland, Oregon 20th-century American male actors {{US-voice-actor-1920s-stub