A naval officer's son, Goldring spent much of his childhood on the road, travelling to wherever his father happened to be based. After finishing prep school in Maryland, he attended Trinity University in San Antonio for a year before doing military service with the Army Signals Corps in Vietnam. Upon his demobilisation, Goldring returned to Maryland and for a short time worked a construction job. In 1968, he moved to Chicago to join the Cole Marionettes theatrical troupe as a puppeteer, touring the Midwest. Two years later, he was back in the 'windy city' to study at the Goodman School of Drama, graduating in 1973. Aware that he needed to improve his finesse as an actor, he busied himself for the next three years performing on radio and appearing on the stage in productions like Under Milkwood, Dandelion Wine and Lunching.
The red-haired, craggy-faced, husky-voiced actor made his screen debut in 1976 and was quickly typecast to playing a host of detectives, motorcycle cops and army officers. He later commented: "For some reason, people see me as an authority figure. I fit well into uniforms." In that capacity, he featured in the TV series Angel Street (1992), New York Cops: NYPD Blue (1993), Turks (1999) and Boss (2011) (a recurring role as an ex cop-turned-barkeep), as well as Ich bin Du (1988), Excessive Force - Das Gesetz in seinen Händen (1992) and Auf der Flucht (1993) on the big screen. Nothing if not versatile, Goldring also played one of the Joker's minions (Grumpy) in The Dark Knight (2008), a Starfleet officer and a Cardassian Legate in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) and the Alpha Hirogen Karr in the World War II holodeck simulation of Star Trek: Raumschiff Voyager (1995)'s double episode The Killing Game. Peers often described Goldring as a consummate professional who would gladly take on any challenging role.
The actor died from kidney failure in Chicago on December 2 2022 at the age of 76.
