He became best known for his title role in Luis Bunuel's "The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (1954)--he beat out Welles for the role, which earned O'Herlihy an Oscar nomination as Best Actor. O'Herlihy had a long and varied career as a versatile player, he was seen in Douglas Sirk's melodrama "Imitation of Life" (1959), in Sidney Lumet's Cold War drama "Fail-Safe" (1964), as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt opposite Peck in "MacArthur" (1977), as a homicidal toymaker in "Halloween 3: Season of the Witch" (1982), in full makeup as a lizardlike alien in "The Last Starfighter" (1984), the lead character Mr. Browne in John Huston's film version of the James Joyce story "The Dead" (1987) and as the villainous Old Man, the CEO of Omni Consumer Products, in "RoboCop" (1987) and its 1990 sequel--the latter films made O'Herily a favorite of sci-fi and fantasy genre fans. His final role had him playing Kennedy family patriarch Joe Kennedy in the HBO telepic "The Rat Pack" in 1998.
O'Herilhy's scores of TV credits included Doc McPheeters in "The Travels of Jamie McPheeters" (1963), town boss Will Varner in the series version of "The Long Hot Summer" (1965), The Director in 'A Man Called Sloane' (1979), intelligence agent Carson Marsh in "Whiz Kids" (1984) and as Alexander Packard in the David Lynch-created cult favorite "Twin Peaks" (1990).
The actor's brother was the Emmy-nominated television and film director Michael O'Herlihy. One of O'Herily's sons, Gavan, was the Irish National Tennis Champion and followed his father's footsteps into acting, playing lost brother Chuck Cunningham in the first season of the sitcom "Happy Days."