Richard John Chaves is an American character actor. In the early 1980s he began his acting career, playing various roles in soap operas, until in 1987 he got the role of Poncho in the science fiction film Predator. Shortly after that, his career received a new boost thanks to the role of Lieutenant Colonel Ironhorse in the television series War of the Worlds. Chaves once calculated that the volume of fan mail he received was four to five times greater than that of the other members of the cast.