Discovered by the same agent who launched the careers of Rock Hudson and Tab Hunter, Saxon first gained notice for his performance as a disturbed high school football star who taunts Esther Williams in
The Unguarded Moment (1956). In the film's credits, he's billed as "the exciting new personality John Saxon."
He played a police chief who makes a fatal mistake in the Canadian cult classic
Black Christmas (1974), featuring Margot Kidder and Keir Dullea, and his horror résumé also includes two films for Roger Corman:
Queen of Blood (1966) and
Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), playing a tyrannical warlord.
In Warner Bros.'
Enter the Dragon (1973), Lee's first mainstream American movie and last before his death at age 32, Saxon portrayed Roper, a degenerate gambler who participates in a martial arts tournament. In real life, his fighting skills did not approach those possessed by Lee and another co-star, karate champion Jim Kelly.
Saxon, though, said that Lee "took me seriously. I would tell him I would rather do it this way, and he'd say, 'OK, try it that way,' " he
told the
Los Angeles Times in 2012.
Saxon played the cop Donald Thompson in the first and third films in the
Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, where he's eventually killed by Freddy Krueger's skeleton. He then returned to play a version of himself in
New Nightmare (1994).
