80s star of Jaws and Halloween franchises who started acting because of Rob Reiner seen at 65... who is he?

A 1980s actor who starred in a pair of top-flight Hollywood franchises was spotted out and about this week in sunny Los Angeles.

He featured with Jamie Lee Curtis in one of the Halloween pictures and held a major role in one of the follow-up movies in the Jaws franchise.

Then he led the cast of a 1984 sci-fi epic that performed tepidly at the box office but has earned a reputation as a cult classic among devotees of the genre.

Over the years he has appeared on TV shows ranging from Knots Landing and St. Elsewhere to The X-Files and House, and he also played Johnny Cash on Broadway.

Now 65 with a bushy white beard, he cut a casual figure in a red t-shirt and a set of fashionably faded jeans during his latest sighting in Southern California.

Can you guess who he is?

He is none other than Lance Guest, known as Jimmy Lloyd in Halloween II and then as Martin Jr in the fourth and final Jaws film Jaws: The Revenge.

Born and raised in rural Saratoga, California, he performed in school plays in high school and was sufficiently infected by the acting bug to study the craft at UCLA, where he was awarded the Shakespeare award, via his IMDb biography. 

'Rob Reiner as Meathead from All in the Family inspired me to be an actor,' he recalled in an interview with the blog Indie Mac User.

'When I was about 11 or 12, I thought: “That guy is so great. And his job is to just rehearse all week for a half hour show and then do it on Friday.”'

He acknowledged: 'I was probably wrong about the schedule, but that’s the first I remember seriously thinking about becoming a professional. I didn’t grow in Hollywood or anything, so I didn’t know anybody who did that'

His breakthrough role came in the 1981 picture Halloween II, which saw Jamie Lee Curtis reprise her turn from the first movie as Laurie Strode, the teenage target of her serial killer brother Michael Myers, played by Dick Warlock.

Guest featured as Jimmy, a teen hospital orderly who treats Laurie for the injuries she sustained in the first film and becomes entangled in the horror plot of the second. 

He recalled later that Curtis 'had a great sense of humor, but she was pretty serious about the acting. One time she didn’t like the shoes or something she was wearing and referred to herself as "Nerd Curtis." I liked her. I kind of had a crush on her.'

In 1984 he played the lead role of an American teenager called Alex Rogan dragged into an interstellar war between space aliens in Nick Castle's The Last Starfighter.

With a cast including soap star Catherine Mary Stewart, Oscar nominee Dan O'Herlihy The Music Man icon Robert Preston, the picture performed only moderately well upon its release but has since earned a dedicated cult following.

Then in 1987 he featured in Jaws: The Revenge, a mega-flop that killed the film series in spite of a cast that included such names as Michael Caine.

The film was led by Lorraine Gay, reprising her longstanding franchise role of Ellen Brody, the wife of the police chief Martin Brady played by Roy Schneider.

By the events of Jaws: The Revenge, Martin is dead but his son Martin Jr - played by Guest - is one of the major characters in the action.

His co-stars included Mario Van Peebles and tragic child star Judith Barsi, who went on to play Ducky in Don Bluth's The Land Before Time before she was killed by her father in a shocking murder-suicide that also claimed the life of her mother.

Although Guest's movie stardom peaked in the 1980s, he has enjoyed a longstanding career onstage including an acclaimed Broadway performance as Johnny Cash.

He played the country legend in the play Million Dollar Quartet, about the famous 1956 recording session with Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Guest began playing the role on Broadway when it opened in 2010, and continued in the part after the show shifted to off-Broadway in 2011 owing to flagging ticket sales.

He has also guest-starred on TV shows including Dallas, St. Elsewhere, Knots Landing, The Wonder Years, The X-Files, JAG, NYPD Blue, Jericho and House.