William Devane

William Devane (born September 5, 1937) is an American film and television actor.

Life and career

He was born in Albany, New York, the son of Joseph (Joe) Devane, who was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's chauffeur when he was Governor of New York.^[1] Devane graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

Devane got his feet wet playing a member of the Kennedy clan, as Robert Kennedy in the Off-Broadway spoof MacBird in 1966. He gained acclaim for his role as President John F. Kennedy in the 1974 TV movie The Missiles of October, about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and again the following year when he played the role of blacklisted radio personality John Henry Faulk in the Emmy award-winning TV movie, Fear on Trial. He became widely known for his ten years as the villainous Greg Sumner on the drama series Knots Landing

Devane Appeared in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman in a 1994 episode entitled "That Old Gang of Mine" as Al Capone

Devane appeared in the films McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Lady Liberty (1971), Family Plot (1976), Marathon Man (1976), Rolling Thunder (1977), The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977), Testament (1983), Forgotten Sins (1996), Payback (1999), and Space Cowboys (2000).

Devane played members of the United States Cabinet on two evening dramas. In 2004, he guest-starred as United States Secretary of State and potential vice-presidential nominee Lewis Berryhill on The West Wing. In 2005, he joined the cast of 24 as United States Secretary of Defense James Heller in the show's fourth season. During the middle of the season, however, Devane was one of several cast members to be written out of the series. He returned for one more episode later that season, and again in the show's fifth and sixth seasons (2006). In his role on The West Wing, Devane appeared in several scenes with the show's fictional President Josiah Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen. Devane and Sheen also appeared together as President Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy, respectively, 30 years earlier in The Missiles of October.

In 2004, Devane also starred in three episodes of Stargate SG-1, as President Henry Hayes and also appears in the direct to DVD movie Stargate: Continuum. Most recently, he starred in the short-lived ABC sitcom, Crumbs and also plays Brian Davis's father, a real estate broker, in the ABC series What About Brian. And more recently in 2008, he starred in Russ Emanuel's "Chasing the Green" alongside Jeremy London, Ryan Hurst, and Robert Picardo.

References

External links

• William Devane at the Internet Movie Database
• Image of William Devane