The Robe star Jay Robinson dead at 83

Actor Jay Robinson, who twice portrayed Roman Emperor Caligula on the big screen, has died, aged 83. Robinson made his film debut as Caligula in the 1953 biblical epic The Robe, opposite Richard Burton, Jean Simmons and Victor Mature, and reprised the character the following year in Demetrius and the Gladiators.
He began his acting career on Broadway and once played Le Beau opposite Katharine Hepburn in a 1950 production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
His career took a nosedive in the late 1950s after he was arrested at his home in Bel-Air and charged with possessing and selling heroin. He was found guilty and sentenced to a year in jail.
Robinson once told the Los Angeles Times that his arrest ruined his acting dreams, confessing, “I lost everything in Hollywood.”
He spent almost a decade rebuilding his career, and was re-arrested on a bench warrant for failing to appear in court in 1966.
But he bounced back with TV spots on shows like Bewitched, Mannix and The Waltons, and became a regular on U.S. daytime soap Days of Our Lives.