THE GREAT TV SHOW ACTORS
by graemewilliam | created - 2 weeks ago | updated - 2 weeks ago | PublicHave You Seem Them On TV
1. Jack Lord
Actor | Dr. No
Jack Lord will probably be best remembered as Steve McGarrett in the long running television series Hawaii Five-O (1968), but he was much more than that however. He starred in several movies, directed several episodes of his show, was in several Broadway productions, and was an accomplished artist....
2. Telly Savalas
Actor | Kojak
Of Greek descent on both sides, the son of immigrants, Savalas was a soldier during World War II, although most of his enlistment records were destroyed in a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1973. He later studied psychology at Columbia University under the ...
3. James Garner
Actor | The Notebook
Amiable and handsome James Garner had obtained success in both films and television, often playing variations of the charming anti-hero/con-man persona he first developed in Maverick, the offbeat western TV series that shot him to stardom in the late 1950s.
James Garner was born James Scott ...
4. James Gandolfini
Actor | The Sopranos
James Gandolfini was born in Westwood, New Jersey, to Santa (Penna), a high school lunchlady, and James Joseph Gandolfini, Sr., a bricklayer and head school janitor. His parents were both of Italian origin. Gandolfini began acting in the New York theater. His Broadway debut was in the 1992 revival ...
5. Dennis Waterman
Actor | New Tricks
Dennis Waterman was born on February 24, 1948 in Clapham, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for New Tricks (2003), Sweeney 2 (1978) and Minder (1979). He was married to Pam Flint, Rula Lenska, Patricia Maynard and Penny Dixon. He died on May 8, 2022 in Spain.
6. Daniel J. Travanti
Actor | Hill Street Blues
The highly regarded actor Daniel J. Travanti was born Danielo Giovanni Travanty in the southeastern part of Wisconsin on March 7, 1940, but raised for a time in Iowa before returning to his native state. The youngest son of an American Motors auto worker, he showed both athletic and academic ...
7. Bryan Cranston
Actor | Breaking Bad
Bryan Lee Cranston was born on March 7, 1956 in Hollywood, California, to Audrey Peggy Sell, a radio actress, and Joe Cranston, an actor and former amateur boxer. His maternal grandparents were German, and his father was of Irish, German, and Austrian-Jewish ancestry. He was raised in the Canoga ...
8. George Clooney
Actor | The Ides of March
George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and television host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney ...
9. Douglas Henshall
Actor | Shetland
Douglas Henshall was born in Glasgow, Scotland in November 1965. His mother was a nurse and his father a salesman. He is the youngest of three children and has two older sisters. He grew up in Barrhead and attended Barrhead High School. Whilst at school a friend asked him to join The Scottish Youth...
10. Sean Bean
Actor | The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Sean Bean's career since the eighties spans theatre, radio, television and movies. Bean was born in Handsworth, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, to Rita (Tuckwood) and Brian Bean. He worked for his father's welding firm before he decided to become an actor. He attended RADA in London and appeared in a ...
11. Kent McCord
Actor | Predator 2
The son of Bert and Laura McWhirter, Kent Franklin McWhirter was born in Los Angeles on September 26, 1942. Planning to become a physical education instructor and football coach, he transferred from Citrus Junior College to the University of Southern California in 1961. There he met Ricky Nelson ...
12. Timothy Olyphant
Actor | Justified
From Timothy Olyphant's first screen appearances, such as his two-minute bit in The First Wives Club (1996), to "Nicko", whose presence at times dwarfed the island in A Perfect Getaway (2009), he has been a force to be reckoned with.
Born in Hawaii, Timothy David Olyphant was raised in Modesto, ...
13. Sarah Jessica Parker
Actress | Sex and the City
Sarah Jessica Parker was born March 25, 1965, in Nelsonville, Ohio, to Barbra Forste (née Keck), a teacher who ran a nursery school, and Stephen Parker, a journalist. Her parents divorced, and her mother later remarried to Paul Forste and had four more children, bringing the total to eight. Sarah ...
14. Dominic West
Actor | The Wire
Dominic West was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England as Dominic Gerard Francis Eagleton West. He is an actor and producer, known for The Wire (2002), Chicago (2002), 300 (2006), The Affair (2014) and The Forgotten (2004). He has been married to Catherine Fitzgerald since June 26, 2010. They have ...
15. Mister Ed
Self | Mister Ed
Mister Ed was born in El Monte, California, and his real name was Bamboo Harvester. He was a palomino show horse that had his own show. On the Mr. Ed show, he played a talking horse that only spoke to his owner Wilber. Bamboo Harvester actually had a stunt double who stepped in often. He died in ...
16. Nathan Fillion
Actor | Castle
Nathan Fillion was born on 27 March 1971 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He is the son of Cookie (Early) and Bob Fillion, both retired English teachers, and has an older brother, Jeff. His father is of French-Canadian descent, and his mother is of English, German, Finnish, and Norwegian ancestry. In ...
17. Robert Urich
Actor | Lonesome Dove
Robert Urich grew up in Toronto, Ohio, one of four siblings of Slovak and Rusyn descent, raised Catholic by their parents, John P. Urich (died 1977) and Cecelia (née Halpate) Urich (died 2002). His athletic ability led to a four-year football scholarship at Florida State University (FSU). He earned...
18. Erin Krakow
Actress | When Calls the Heart
Erin Krakow was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for When Calls the Heart (2014), Army Wives (2007) and It Was Always You (2021).
19. Adrian Dunbar
Actor | The Crying Game
Adrian Dunbar was born on August 1, 1958 in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, UK. He is an actor and producer, known for The Crying Game (1992), Line of Duty (2012) and Hear My Song (1991). He has been married to Anna Nygh since 1986. They have one child.
20. Melissa Joan Hart
Actress | Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Melissa grew up in Sayville, New York. Her acting career started at the age of four, when she did a commercial for a bathtub toy called Splashy. Her mother, Paula Hart, has been her agent from the beginning. Melissa is the oldest of eight children, some from her mother's second marriage. Six ...
21. Matthew Perry
Actor | Friends
Matthew Perry was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, to Suzanne Marie (Langford), a Canadian journalist, and John Bennett Perry, an American actor. His ancestry includes English, Irish, German, Swiss-German, and French-Canadian.
Perry was raised in Ottawa, Ontario, where he became a top-ranked ...
22. Jim Parsons
Actor | The Big Bang Theory
Having grown up in Houston, and its northern suburb of Spring, he made his first stage appearance in a school play at the age of 6. Parsons then went on to study theater at the University of Houston. From there he won a place on a two-year Masters course in classical theater at the University of ...
23. Clint Eastwood
Actor | Million Dollar Baby
Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margaret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took ...
24. Michael Douglas
Actor | Wall Street
A legendary actor with 50 celebrated years of film, television and producing experience, Michael Douglas is known for his era-defining roles and enduring cultural impact.
In addition to his career accomplishments, Douglas has remained a steadfast public servant, activist and philanthropist dedicated...
25. Bill Bixby
Actor | The Incredible Hulk
The son of a sales clerk and a department store owner, Bill Bixby was the sixth-generation Californian born as Wilfred Bailey Bixby, on January 22, 1934, in San Francisco, California. An only child growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, he attended schools in the same area, took ballroom dance lessons,...
26. Hermione Norris
Actress | Spooks
Hermione Norris was born on February 12, 1967 in Paddington, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for MI-5 (2002), Wire in the Blood (2002) and Cold Feet (1997). She has been married to Simon Wheeler since December 2002. They have two children.
27. Tom Selleck
Actor | Blue Bloods
Thomas William Selleck is an American actor and film producer, best known for his starring role as Hawaii-based private investigator "Thomas Magnum" on the 1980s television series, Magnum, P.I. (1980).
Selleck was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Martha (Jagger), a homemaker, and Robert Dean Selleck, a...
28. Ron Perlman
Actor | Hand of God
Ron Perlman is a classically-trained actor who has appeared in countless stage plays, feature films and television productions.
Ronald N. Perlman was born April 13, 1950 in Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York. His mother, Dorothy (Rosen), is retired from the City Clerk's Office. His father, ...
29. Susan Saint James
Actress | McMillan & Wife
Susan Saint James was a lovely and slightly loony TV successor to Shirley MacLaine. Her mildly kooky and clumsy free spirits came into vogue during the "free love" era of the late '60s.
Of German, Irish and English ancestry, Saint James was born Susan Jane Miller in Los Angeles on August 14, 1946, ...
30. Alun Armstrong
Actor | The Mummy Returns
Alun Armstrong is a British actor who is known for playing Cardinal Jinette from the Van Helsing franchise, Baltus Hafez from The Mummy Returns, Uncle Garrow from Eragon, the High Constable from Sleepy Hollow and Maxwell Randall from Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire. He is married to Sue ...
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