Robert Ito is a Canadian-born actor and dancer of Japanese parentage (Nisei). At the age of five, he won his first amateur tap dancing contest. As "little Bobby Ito", he performed for several more years in singing competitions and talent revues. In adulthood, Ito spent the first decade of his professional career as a dancer with the National Ballet of Canada. He moved to New York in 1960 to appear on Broadway in the dancing ensemble of Flower Drum Song, and, a decade later, acted several parts in the operetta Candide.

In Hollywood from 1965, Ito has been a prolific supporting player in episodic television, usually playing characters of Asian ethnicity in shows like Ironside (1967), Kung Fu (1972), Mannix (1967) and The X-Files (1993). In the 70's, he became familiar to a wider audience for his regular role as Sam Fujiyama, the clever forensic lab technician and faithful offsider of Quincy, M.E. (1976) (played by Jack Klugman). He appeared twice in M*A*S*H (1972), respectively as a North Korean soldier and as a black marketeer. Ito played Lieutenant Chang, an officer at Starfleet Academy, in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and Harry Kim's father John in Star Trek: Voyager (1995). On the big screen, he portrayed Commander Minoru Genda (1904-1989) of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the World War II blockbuster Midway (1976). In 1996, Ito was nominated for a Gemini Award as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the telemovie Trial at Fortitude Bay (1994).

Since 1985, he has been prolific as a voice actor for diverse animated series, covering pretty much anything from Rambo (1986) to the The Smurfs (1981), from The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries (1995) to Justice League (2001) and Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005).