Sam Waterston
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Samuel A. "Sam" Waterston (born November 15, 1940) is an Oscar nominated American actor noted particularly for his portrayal of Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy on the long-running NBC television series Law & Order. He has also performed in many feature films.
He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to George Chychele Waterston (an English immigrant) and Alice Tucker Atkinson (an American Mayflower descendant). Waterston attended both the Brooks School, a boarding school in North Andover, Massachusetts, and the Groton School. He entered Yale University on scholarship in 1958 and graduated with a BA in 1962. He also received a honorary degree in 2001. After graduating from Yale, he attended the Clinton Playhouse for several months. Waterston also attended the Sorbonne in Paris and the American Actors Workshop.
His first film was Fitzwilly in 1967. Other films include The Great Gatsby, Rancho Deluxe, The Boy Who Loved Trolls, Journey Into Fear, Capricorn One, Heaven's Gate, Hopscotch, The Killing Fields (nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor), Interiors, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Mindwalk, Serial Mom, and Nixon. Waterston is a six time Emmy Award nominee, winner of the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Aside from Law & Order, he has played other television roles including D.A. Forrest Bedford in I'll Fly Away. He also had a starring role in an episode segment on the TV series Amazing Stories called "Mirror Mirror".
He is also on the Advisory Committee for the Lincoln Bicentennial, celebrating Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. Waterston has portrayed Lincoln on stage and screen (The Civil War, Gore Vidal's Lincoln, Abe Lincoln in Illinois on Broadway, and also voiced Lincoln at an exhibit at the Philadelphia Constitution Center.)
An active humanitarian, Waterston also donates considerable time to organizations such as Refugees International, Meals on Wheels, The United Way, and The Episcopal Actors' Guild of America.
He currently resides in Connecticut with his wife, Lynn, and four children, Elisabeth, Katherine, Graham, and James. Elisabeth and James Waterston have both pursued acting careers.
Trivia
- He has appeared in episodes of four different series with Richard Belzer: Law & Order, ', ' and .
- He also made a cameo appearance on an episode of Saturday Night Live as himself, extolling the virtues of Old Glory Insurance, meant to protect the user from robot attacks.
- He lent his voice to the popular animated television series Family Guy where he played Dr. Kaplan, the psychiatrist Brian Griffin consulted during his midlife crisis in the episode "Brian in Love". His character, Dr. Kaplan, was modeled to look like Waterston. He was Dr. Kaplan's voice in the episode "Road to Rhode Island", but he is not credited in any other episode in which the character appears.
- In 2002, Waterston and fellow Law & Order castmate Jerry Orbach were honored as "Living Landmarks" by the New York Landmarks Conservancy.
- Waterston starred with Katharine Hepburn in a 1973 TV movie adaptation of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. The film also featured Michael Moriarty. Coincidentally, Waterston replaced Moriarty as the Executive Assistant District Attorney many years later on Law & Order.
- Waterston hosted a series of shorts that appeared during commercial breaks entitled "Timeline 2000" for the History Channel circa 2000.
- Waterston is regularly featured in television advertisements for Toronto-Dominion Bank's TD Ameritrade (formerly TD Waterhouse, the bank's investment arm). He replaced former L&O castmate Steven Hill as TD's spokesman.
- Waterston hosted the PBS television show .
External links
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