American actor Don Hastings was born on April 1, 1934 in New York City. He was one of television’s early stars, debuting on the small screen in 1949, in a drama for The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre. While auditioning for the television series The Magic Cottage, he got a role on the superhero series Captain Video and his Video Rangers, where he played the Video Ranger, the teenaged sidekick to the title character (Richard Coogan and later Al Hodge). He appeared in the series from 1949 to 1955.
In 1956, he joined the cast of the soap opera The Edge of Night, playing the role of Jack Lane. He left four years later, only to join another soap opera, As the World Turns. He succeeded actors Bobby Alford and Ronnie Welch in playing the role of Dr. Bob Hughes. Along with co-stars Helen Wagner and Eileen Fulton, he has held the role for the longest time on television. Arguably, he holds the record for an actor having playing a single role in the longest continuous time; Fulton, who is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records for such, left the show a few times in the 1980s.
Hastings also appeared as Bob Hughes on the short-lived spin-off drama, Our Private World. Apart from that, his other television appearances include the television movies Decoys and Engaged to Kill. He has also worked as a writer for soap operas, working for Guiding Light and As the World Turns under the pseudonym C. C. David.
