John Larkin (April 11, 1912 – January 29, 1965) was an American actor whose nearly 30-year career was capped by his 1950s portrayal of two fictional criminal attorneys – Perry Mason on radio and Mike Karr on television daytime drama The Edge of Night.

The show's leading characters, Dr. Jim Brent, a surgeon, and his wife, were played by daytime veterans Don MacLaughlin and Virginia Dwyer who also voiced the roles in the radio version.

Nine months after the show's cancellation on July 1, 1955, MacLaughlin and one of radio's earlier Perry Masons, Santos Ortega, would spend thirty and twenty years, respectively, on one of daytime's first two half-hour soaps, As the World Turns.

Procter & Gamble could not, however, come to terms with Erle Stanley Gardner regarding Perry Mason's position as a daytime TV character and the defense attorney, while remaining with CBS, returned in twenty-one months, on September 21, 1957, as a primetime show, starring Raymond Burr.

Unseen over the weekend, Sara Karr turned out to have saved Laurie at the cost of her own life, as she lingered in a coma during Monday and Tuesday episodes, finally dying on Wednesday, February 22 and engendering an avalanche of calls to CBS along with thousands of letters (over 2,500 in the first day alone).

For the next two months, the plotlines centered around supporting character Ed Gibson, another crime-fighting attorney, played by Larry Hagman, until Mike Karr, now portrayed by Laurence Hugo, returned in mid-December.

[2] Although he was born in the San Francisco Bay area, Larkin had spent his entire career in other venues and was now, shortly before his fiftieth birthday, returning to his native state of California.

The following months were spent in filming episodes of NBC's Saints and Sinners, starring Nick Adams, who achieved high recognition in his previous series, ABC's half-hour western The Rebel, which ran from 1959 to 1961.

Monday, September 17, the day Saints and Sinners' premiere episode was scheduled for broadcast in the 8:30–9:30 time slot, John Larkin made an appearance on NBC's afternoon series, Here's Hollywood, which specialized in celebrity interviews and show promotions, talking about his career and his hopes for the new venture.

"New Lead Berlin", the 17th and final episode of the series, shown on January 28, 1963, spotlighted John Larkin in a dual role, as Mark Grainger confronted his lookalike, Bartley King.

The central character is Frank Medford, a friend of Ben Cartwright from his youthful days, who arrives in Virginia City, presenting himself as a successful businessman and charms all the ladies, especially the still-attractive, prosperous widow, Emily Colfax, played by Helen Westcott.

"Better Than a Dead Lion", the January 20 episode of the psychiatric series Breaking Point, marked his first performance in the new year, followed by the February 7 broadcast of "The Evil of Adelaide Winters", another installment of Hitchcock.

The political drama about a planned military takeover of the U.S. Government, was filmed during the final months of the Kennedy administration and starred Burt Lancaster as the chief plotter, General Scott, with an unbilled John Larkin appearing in two scenes as one of his co-conspirators, Colonel Broderick.

Walt Disney's family drama, Those Calloways, directed by Norman Tokar, billed him eighth, behind Brian Keith, Vera Miles, Brandon deWilde, Walter Brennan, Ed Wynn, Linda Evans and Philip Abbott.

The other feature, The Satan Bug, a doomsday thriller about the theft from a bacteriological lab of a deadly virus capable of causing immense casualties, was directed by John Sturges and scripted by James Clavell from the novel by Alistair MacLean.

A few of the episodes placed Larkin at the center of dramatic conflict, particularly "The Climate of Doubt" (October 23), in which General Crowe faces a board of inquiry for a risky strategy intended to aid the French Resistance.