Robert Harris achieved international fame when he appeared as Old Man Cadwell in director Eli Roth's 2002 horror film Cabin Fever. Amazingly, Harris' role of a life-time came when he was seventy-two years old, and only three years after he began acting in films.

Harris may have gotten his turn on the silver screen late in life, but he has always been an entertainer. As a small boy, Harris sang and danced for Confederate veterans at their retirement home in Raleigh. In the 1960's, when UNC-G was Women's College, Harris worked as a Townsman, one of a number of male performers who were hired to act, sing and dance in the school's stage productions. When the school went co-ed, Harris went to Boone, NC to perform for two summers in Horn of the West. Since 1991, Harris has had a regular role in the Greensboro Ballet's Nutcracker Suite and he has been an actor on call at the School of the Arts for the past several years.

Besides his role in Cabin Fever, Harris has also played supporting roles in such North Carolina produced films as Above Suspicion (which starred Scott Bakula of  Quantum Leap and Star Trek: Enterprise fame),  Summer Catch, Juwanna Man, A Tale of Bootlegging, Grave Dancers and Junebug.