John Hammond (born October 6, 1955) is an American actor. As a virtual unknown he landed the lead role in the 1982 miniseries, The Blue and the Gray as fictional Virginia war-artist John Geyser, [1] [2] [3] then followed it up with lead role in the 1983 family film The Prodigal. [4] He also appeared in five episodes of the TV drama St. Elsewhere in 1984, two episodes of Highway to Heaven , the TV movies Deadly Care in 1987 and Do You Know the Muffin Man in 1989. Hammond also made an appearance in the 1990 movie The Adventures of Ford Fairlane , starring Andrew Dice Clay, and the 1998 horror movie Laughing Dead . Most recently, he starred in the 2017 somber drama Days Till Death , directed by Chia Hao Tat.