Robert Trebor (born June 7, 1953) is an American character actor, perhaps best known for his role as "Salmoneus" on the cult hits Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess.
Trebor was born Robert Schenkman and grew up in Northeast Philadelphia, first showing signs of interest in acting around age 13. He was soon taking acting classes and participating in local theater groups. He also won several filmmaking awards from Kodak short film competitions, and the local Philadelphia ABC and PBS affiliates for a short black and white film called "Communicate!?"
He wrote, directed, and starred in this short, as well as composed the music on an early version of a Moog synthesizer. His first lead role on the stage was as Finch in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for the St. Joseph's Summer Music Theatre Festival. Along with his acting Robert won several national awards from Scholastic Magazines for writing film and theatre reviews. Ironically one of his award winning reviews was for John Frankenheimer's The Fixer. Years later he would star for Mr. Frankenheimer in the film 52 Pickup. After a brief focus on oratory, he returned to acting, majoring in theater at Northwestern University. He returned to Philadelphia to star with Bill Irwin in a revival of George Gershwin's Strike Up The Band for the inaugural season of the American Music Theatre Festival at the historic Walnut Street Theatre.
Trebor has alternated between film and television. On the silver screen, his most acclaimed work is probably 52 Pickup, directed by John Frankenheimer.
On television, after playing Waylon the slave in Hercules and the Lost Kingdom, the second of five TV movies, Trebor rose to fame for playing the ever-out-to-make-a-buck merchant Salmoneus, a character originating on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and making occasional crossovers to sister show Xena: Warrior Princess. Previously he had played the Son of Sam killer in the much-praised Out of the Darkness opposite Martin Sheen. A recent project for the theatre is a one-man show called "The Return of Brother Theodore". The Los Angeles Weekly gave the show its prized "GO" recommendation and said, "actor Robert Trebor reincarnates Gottlieb in a 45-minute late-night solo performance that paints Brother Theodore’s belligerent reflections on a twisted life with broad yet powerful comedic strokes." This production was nominated by The LA Weekly for Best Solo Performance of 2007. His most recent theatrical work was starring as the Russian Major Viktor Davidykov in the drama Ravensridge written by TS Cook. Mr. Cook was the writer of the aforementioned Out Of The Darkness produced in 1985. His work in this play has been widely praised, Variety saying "Trebor is superb as the acerbic Davidykov, ironically bemoaning, "We used to be such a beautiful police state," and then affectingly describing how for all of communism's faults, how important it was that the whole country was experiencing it together. Trebor's Russian accent is excellent, and his perf is multilayered and nimble."
