Skip to content
EntityQ452605· pop 40· linked from 710 articles

Rafer Johnson

Sign in to save

Also known as Rafer Lewis Johnson

American athlete and actor (1934–2020)

Person · Open Library

Born
1935
Works
3

Top works

  • Great athletes
  • Great athletes
  • The best that I can be

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Male
Origin
United States
Active from
1911-05-08
Active to
1938-08-16
27 clubacoustic bluesamericanbluescountry bluesdelta blues

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

  1. DADA2: High-resolution sample inference from Illumina amplicon data

    · 2016 · cited 31,700x

  2. Geant4—a simulation toolkit

    · 2003 · cited 20,936x

  3. Initial sequencing and analysis of the human genome

    · 2001 · cited 18,520x

  4. Optical Constants of the Noble Metals

    · 1972 · cited 18,060x

  5. Model-based Analysis of ChIP-Seq (MACS)

    · 2008 · cited 17,486x

via Crossref · CC0

Key facts

Full name
Rafer Lewis Johnson
Born
( 1934-08-18 ) August 18, 1934, Hillsboro, Texas , U.S.
Died
December 2, 2020 (2020-12-02) (aged 86), Sherman Oaks , California , U.S.
Height
6 ft 3 in (1.90 m)
Weight
201 lb (91 kg)
Spouse
Elizabeth Thorsen ​ ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1971 ) ​
Sport
Athletics
Event
Decathlon
Club
Southern California Striders, Anaheim
Personal best s
100 m – 10.3 (1957), 220 yd – 21.0 (1956), 400 m – 47.9 (1956), 110 mH – 13.8 (1956), HJ – 1.89 m (1955), PV – 4.09 m (1960), LJ – 7.76 m (1956), SP – 16.75 m (1958), DT – 52.50 m (1960), JT – 76.73 m (1960), Decathlon – 8392 (1960)

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Mass
91
Image
Rafer Johnson 1960.jpg
Height
190
Show 4 more facts
date of birth
1935-08-18
Commons category
Rafer Johnson
date of death
2020-12-02
name in native language
Rafer Johnson
Sources (6)

via Wikidata · CC0

~12 min read

Article

Rafer Lewis Johnson (August 18, 1934 – December 2, 2020) was an American decathlete and film and television actor. He was the 1960 Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, having won silver in 1956. He had previously won a gold at the 1955 Pan American Games. Johnson was the U.S. team's flag bearer at the 1960 Olympics and lit the Olympic cauldron at the 1984 Summer Olympics.

In 1968, Johnson, football player Rosey Grier, and journalist George Plimpton tackled Sirhan Sirhan moments after he had fatally shot Robert F. Kennedy.

Connections

Categories