BELLFLOWER — John Dabbs is tall, well built and wears a blue headband.

The tattoos on his arms and shoulders can be seen under the sleeveless Harley Davidson T-shirt he wears. He has a pierced chin and wears heavy metal earrings. His fingers (all of them) are covered with large steel rings, of which he has 30.

In short, Dabbs, 61, looks like a “big, bad, mean biker.”

It is a look that has landed him dozens of parts over the years as an extra in various movies and television shows.

“I’m always a mean biker,” he said. “Bikers [in the movies] are always bad.”

But looks can be deceiving.

“I am not what I look like,” he says.

“Most people aren’t. We are all children of God. I spread the word that he let me live. My father [who was a pastor] would have wanted me to.”

Nowadays, when he isn’t serving as an extra in movies or TV shows, Dabbs spends a lot of time baby-sitting.

“I do a lot of baby-sitting. I have some medical problems and am not strong enough to ride my Harley (he owns three) too far. Most of the time I drive my Ford pickup.”

It wasn’t always like that, though.

His condition, his baby-sitting and appreciation to God are all tied to an incident in September 2007 when he came to the aid of an elderly man who was being attacked in a Carson trailer park.

Dabbs intervened, suffering seven stab wounds before police arrived to arrest the assailant and rush Dabbs to UCLA-Harbor Medical Center.

“I was unconscious seven days,” Dabbs said. “My sister, Debbie, came down from Portland, Oregon, to stay with me. I didn’t even know she was there.”

But before losing consciousness, Dabbs said “I prayed to God, asking him to let me live so I could see my granddaughter grow up.”

His granddaughter, then 2, marks her fifth birthday Sept. 12. She now has a younger sister for Dabbs to watch. Their mother, his step-daughter, lives with him and the girls in their Bellflower home. Divorced, Dabbs has four adult children and the two granddaughters.

He also cares for a pet bulldog named Lady Elizabeth. “I call her Pudden,” he adds.

Recalling the attack, Dabbs said he visited the trailer park to see a woman he knew who was working as a caregiver for the elderly man, who was 84 and connected to an oxygen tank and used a walker.

He is not sure why the elderly man was attacked, but said he had to help.

“I’m not sorry I intervened. The old man said I was his hero, but he was my hero. He fought for us in two wars, World War II and Korea,” said Dabbs, noting the gentleman died within the past year.

Dabbs said God not only saved his life but that of the old man and even the assailant, who is now in jail for an assault instead of being charged with murder.

A native and lifelong resident of Bellflower, Dabbs and his sister both graduated from Bellflower High School, he in 1967. Besides his demand as an extra for movies, Dabbs was a cable television repairman for Verizon until he retired in 2002 after 35 years of service.

Their father, John Dabbs Sr., had a barbershop on Compton (now Somerset) Boulevard in Bellflower for many years and cared for their mother, Doris, who was ill for several years before she died. Later in his life, his father became a pastor and preached in various churches in the area but did not have a regular congregation, his son said.

It was the gasoline shortage in the 1970s that got Dabbs into the biker fraternity.

“I purchased a Harley to save money on gas and fell in love with it,” he said. “Most bikers have nicknames. They call me ‘The Mayor’ because I used to wear a tall hat.”

When Dabbs preaches at area churches, he recounts how God saved his life after the knife attack and notes that he once had trouble with drinking but says “I’ve been sober for 23 years.”

The tattoos are harder to kick.

“If you don’t have a tattoo, don’t get any,” he said. “They are addictive.”

Dabbs said his tattoos are decorative and have no specific meaning.

“I have tattoos on my arms, shoulders, back and chest, on my legs and plan to get some on the top of my feet,” he said.

Dabbs has been around Bellflower for so long he believes most people know him. Those who don’t are at first wary, but he soon puts them at ease with his friendly manner.

“I get looked at a lot, but I like to talk to people,” he said.

His career as a movie extra continues, but has slowed down following his injuries in 2007.

“I’m always an extra, usually a biker, in the background. You don’t get much money, $65 to $100 a day, but they feed you well and you get to meet people,” he said of his shoots, mostly at various locations in the Los Angeles area and in the desert to the east.

He said he has hobnobbed on the various sets with such stars as Betty White, Sharon Stone and Val Kilmer.

“Stone noticed my rings and came over to see them and take a picture,” he said. “She touched my shoulder so I always say ‘I’ve been touched by Stone.’”

“Kilmer is a nice guy,” he added.

He met White on the set of the TV comedy show “My Name Is Earl.”

“Because of her age, she had to sit a lot so we had a chance to talk,” he said of White, who is in her 80s. He described her as a “nice lady, very sharp for her age.”

Like most people in show business, Dabbs has a scrapbook with pictures from his various movies.

His most recent movies have not been released, but one got good notices at a French film festival, he said.

“That movie is called ‘Nuns With Guns’ and concerns a former nun seeking vengeance on bikers who killed her sisters. Another movie is “Shi.”

Because he is only used in the background on certain scenes, Dabbs said he does not know the complete plots of the movies, nor has he seen most of them.

He believes the two newest films are in the Quentin Tarantino style of shoot-em-up action pictures with a lot of blood.

Other pictures included one two years ago with actress Lee Meriwether, now 74, which saw Dabbs in the background as someone stole her purse. Another time he had a more prominent role recalling “I got beat up by Jamie Fox as he and Martin Lawrence were robbing a bank.

“I just happened to be in the bank. Bikers do use banks,” Dabbs said of the shoot.

He was also in “Deadwood,” on HBO; and two soap operas, “Days of Our Lives” and “The Young and Restless.”

In one scene, he played a prisoner in a jail. He is also been in the background of some music videos and commercials.

Although he likes people, Dabbs says he doesn’t belong to any church or even a biker club.

“I don’t belong to any group,” he said. “If I wanted someone to tell me what to do, I’d get married again. I’m a very independent 61 year old. I ride only with God. He is always with me.”