Claude Marion Akins (May 25, 1926 - January 27, 1994) was an American actor. He was born in Nelson, Georgia and grew up in Bedford, Indiana. He was a 1949 graduate of Northwestern University , where he studied theatre. and became a member of Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity. Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever (or less than clever) tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is best remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s TV series B.J. and the Bear, and later The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, a spinoff series.

In movies, his first appearance was in From Here to Eternity in 1953. Akins portrayed prisoner Joe Berdett in the movie Rio Bravo (which also starred John Wayne and Angie Dickinson), Naval Lt. Commander Farber in Don't Give Up The Ship (starring Jerry Lewis), Sgt Kolowicz in Merrill's Marauders, Rockwell W. "Rocky" Rockman in The Devil's Brigade, the Reverend Jeremiah Brown in the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind, outlaw Ben Lane in Comanche Station that same year, Seely Jones in A Distant Trumpet (1964), and the gorilla leader Aldo in Battle for the Planet of the Apes, the last original Apes movie in 1973.

In television, Akins had an early appearance in Adventures of Superman (episode number 69, "Peril by Sea"), playing a villainous co-conspirator. He had numerous roles in Western series, including Wagon Train, The Big Valley, Death Valley Days, Zane Grey Theater, The Rifleman and Bonanza, and featured roles on the original The Twilight Zone ("The Little People", "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street") and The Untouchables. Another early appearance was playing a cop in "Reward to Finder," on Alfred Hitchcock Presents from 1957.

Before his signature character Lobo, he appeared as trucker Sonny Pruett in NBC's Movin' On, from 1974 to 1976. He also appeared in TV commercials for PoliGrip and Aamco. He guest-starred on an episode of CBS's I Love Lucy, playing himself.

Akins found work in the late 1980s lending his inimitable voice talents to the work safety instructional video series Safety Shorts. In these videos Akins was able to expound the virtues of workplace safety to thousands of industrial employees, offering valuable lessons on the importance of Lockout/tagout procedures, personal protective equipment, and the ever popular MSDS documentation process.

Broad-shouldered and beefy Claude Akins had wavy black hair, a deep booming voice and was equally adept at playing sneering cowardly villains as he was at portraying hard-nosed cops. The son of a police officer, Akins never seemed short of work and appeared in nearly 100 films and 180+ TV episodes in a career spanning over 40 years. He originally attended Northwestern University, and went on to serve with the US Army Signal Corps in World War II in Burma and the Phillipines. Upon returning, he reignited his interest in art and drama and first appeared in front of the camera in 1953 in From Here to Eternity (1953). He quickly began notching up roles in such TV shows as "Dragnet" (1951), "My Friend Flicka" (1956), "Gunsmoke" (1955) and "Zane Grey Theater" (1956). He also turned in several strong cinematic performances, such as gunfighter Joe Burdette in the landmark western Rio Bravo (1959), Mack in the excellent Defiant Ones, The (1958), Sgt. Kolwicz in Merrill's Marauders (1962) and Earl Sylvester in the gripping Killers, The (1964). In the early 1970s Akins turned up in several supernatural TV films playing "no-nonsense" sheriffs in both Night Stalker, The (1972) (TV) and Norliss Tapes, The (1973) (TV), and was unrecognizable underneath his simian make-up as war-mongering Gen. Aldo in Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973). Akins continued starring in films and TV right up until the time of his death from cancer in 1994. By all reports a very gregarious, likable and friendly person off screen, Akins was married for over 40 years to Theresa "Pie" Fairfield, and had three children, Claude Marion Jr., Michele & Wendy.