Jeff Perry | |
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![]() Perry at the Peabody Awards, May 2014 | |
Born | Highland Park, Illinois, U.S. | August 16, 1955
Alma mater | Illinois State University |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1978–present |
Spouses |
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Children | 2, including Zoe Perry |
Jeffrey Perry (born August 16, 1955) is an American actor of stage, television, and film. He is known for his role as Richard Katimski on the teen drama My So-Called Life , Thatcher Grey on the medical drama series Grey's Anatomy , Cyrus Beene on the political drama series Scandal , all for ABC, and as Inspector Harvey Leek on the CBS crime drama Nash Bridges . He currently stars on the ABC drama Alaska Daily, alongside Hilary Swank.
Perry is a co-founder of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. He and schoolmates Gary Sinise and Terry Kinney started the company in one end of the cafeteria at Highland Park High School and later moved it to a small space in the Immaculate Conception Church in Highland Park. It has since grown into a notable national theater company whose alumni include John Malkovich, John Mahoney, and Joan Allen. Perry remains an executive artistic director along with co-founders Kinney and Sinise.
After spending nearly two decades with Steppenwolf, Perry moved to Los Angeles in 1987 to pursue film and television work. Perry perhaps is best known as San Francisco Police Department inspector Harvey Leek (a diehard Grateful Dead fan) on the CBS police drama series Nash Bridges . He was a tough superior to Kevin Bacon's detective in the thriller Wild Things (1998). His many television and film credits include The Human Stain (2003), Hard Promises (1991) and The Grifters (1990) as well as appearances on My So-Called Life (1994), The West Wing (2003), The Practice (2003), Lost (2005), Cold Case (2006), Raines (2007), and several episodes of Grey's Anatomy (2005) as Meredith Grey's father, Thatcher Grey. He replaced John Billingsley in the role of Terrence Steadman in the critically acclaimed TV show Prison Break .
Perry also has been in multiple stage productions. These include Time of your Life (in San Francisco and Seattle), Grapes of Wrath (Broadway and London), and The Caretaker (Broadway). He starred in the Tracy Letts play August: Osage County on Broadway, which originated at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. [1] In 2012, he appeared Off Broadway playing Christopher, the aggressive father in Tribes by Nina Raine.
From 2012 to 2018, Perry starred in the ABC drama series Scandal as Cyrus Beene.
In 2015, Perry performed alongside his daughter Zoe Perry and actor Kevin McKidd in Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Anna Christie at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in West Los Angeles. During the production, he said "During Anna Christie the biggest challenge I had was working with my daughter and sort of not stopping and asking an audience member for a camera to record the moment."
In 2022-23, Perry starred as editor Stanley Kornik in the ABC drama series Alaska Daily.
Perry was born in Highland Park, Illinois, where his father was a teacher at Highland Park High School. He graduated from Illinois State University in 1978. In 2011, Perry received an honorary doctorate from Illinois State University in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to the field of theatre.
Perry was married to actress Laurie Metcalf from 1983 until 1986. [2] They had a child, actress Zoe Perry, together in 1983, but they subsequently divorced. In 1989, he married Linda Lowy, Grey's Anatomy 's casting director, [3] with whom he has a daughter, Leah Perry.
Laura Elizabeth Metcalf is an American actress and comedian. Often described as a character actor, she is known for her complex and versatile roles across the stage and screen. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over four decades, including two Tony Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and three Golden Globe Awards.
Joan Allen is an American actress. She began her career with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 1977, won the 1984 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for And a Nightingale Sang, and won the 1988 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her Broadway debut in Burn This. In the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, Allen received international recognition for a string of critically acclaimed performances. She is also a three-time Academy Award nominee, receiving Best Supporting Actress nominations for Nixon (1995) and The Crucible (1996), and a Best Actress nomination for The Contender (2000).
Gary Alan Sinise is an American actor, humanitarian, and musician. Among other awards, he has won a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was nominated for an Academy Award. Sinise has also received numerous awards and honors for his extensive humanitarian work and involvement with charitable organizations. He is a supporter of various veterans' organizations and founded the Lt. Dan Band, which plays at military bases around the world.
Charles John Mahoney was an English-American actor. He was known for playing Martin Crane on the NBC sitcom Frasier (1993–2004), and won a Screen Actors Guild Award for the role in 2000. Mahoney started his career in Chicago as a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company alongside John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, and Laurie Metcalf. He received the Clarence Derwent Award as Most Promising Male Newcomer in 1986. Later that year, his performance in the Broadway revival of John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves earned him a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.
Joel Grey is an American actor, singer, dancer, photographer and theatre director. He is best known for portraying the Master of Ceremonies in the musical Cabaret on Broadway as well as in the 1972 film adaptation. He has won an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and a Golden Globe Award.
Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theatre company founded in 1974 by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Gary Sinise in the Unitarian church on Half Day Road in Deerfield, Illinois and is now located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on Halsted Street. The theatre's name comes from Hermann Hesse's novel Steppenwolf, which original member Rick Argosh was reading during the company's inaugural production of Paul Zindel's play, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, in 1974. After occupying several theatres in Chicago, in 1991, it moved into its own purpose-built complex with three performing spaces, the largest seating 550.
Terry Kinney is an American actor and theater director, and is a founding member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, with John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf, Gary Sinise, and Jeff Perry. Kinney is best known for his role as Emerald City creator Tim McManus on HBO's prison drama Oz.
Mitchell Ryan was an American film, television, and stage actor, who in his six decades of television is known for playing Burke Devlin in the 1960s gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, and later for his co-starring role as Thomas Gibson's father Edward Montgomery on Dharma & Greg. He also played the villainous General Peter McAllister in the 1987 buddy cop action film Lethal Weapon.
Chandra Danette Wilson is an American actress and director. She is best known for her role as Dr. Miranda Bailey in the ABC television drama Grey's Anatomy since 2005, for which she has been nominated for the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress four times. She also played the character of Bailey on Private Practice and Station 19. She made her New York stage debut in 1991 and began to land guest spots on a variety of prime-time television shows. She made her first film appearance in the 1993 film Philadelphia.
The Drama League Awards, created in 1922, honor distinguished productions and performances both on Broadway and Off-Broadway, in addition to recognizing exemplary career achievements in theatre, musical theatre, and directing. Each May, the awards are presented by The Drama League at the Annual Awards Luncheon with performers, directors, producers, and Drama League members in attendance. The Drama League membership comprises the entire theater community, including award-winning actors, designers, directors, playwrights, producers, industry veterans, critics and theater-going audiences from across the U.S.
Francis V. Guinan Jr. is an American film, television and stage actor who is perhaps best known for his role as Edgar Teller the patriarch in the short-lived series Eerie, Indiana.
The Grapes of Wrath is a 1988 play adapted by Frank Galati from the classic 1939 John Steinbeck novel of the same name, with incidental music by Michael Smith. The play debuted at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, followed by a May 1989 production at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego and a June 1989 production at the Royal National Theatre in London. After eleven previews, the Broadway production, directed by Galati, opened on March 22, 1990 at the Cort Theatre, where it ran for 188 performances. The cast included Gary Sinise, Kathryn Erbe, Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, Lois Smith, Francis Guinan, and Stephen Bogardus. The play was adapted for television in 1990 for the PBS series American Playhouse.
Lois Arlene Smith is an American character actress whose career spans eight decades. She made her film debut in the 1955 drama film East of Eden, and later played supporting roles in a number of movies, including Five Easy Pieces (1970), Resurrection (1980), Fatal Attraction (1987), Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Falling Down (1993), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), Dead Man Walking (1995), Twister (1996), Minority Report (2002), The Nice Guys (2016), Lady Bird (2017), and The French Dispatch (2021).
Frank Joseph Galati was an American director, writer, and actor. He was a member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company and an associate director at Goodman Theatre. He taught at Northwestern University for many years.
Tom Irwin is an American film, television, and stage actor. Irwin is best known for his roles as Adrian Powell in the Lifetime comedy-drama series Devious Maids and as Graham Chase in the mid-1990s drama My So-Called Life.
Kevin Rigdon is a scenic designer, lighting designer. He teaches at the University of Houston, and is the Associate Director/Design for Houston ’s Alley Theatre.
Bruce Norris is an American character actor and playwright associated with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago. His play Clybourne Park won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Orphans is a play by Lyle Kessler. It premiered in 1983 at The Matrix Theatre Company in Los Angeles, where it received critical and commercial success and won the Drama-Logue Award. The play has been performed by the Steppenwolf Theatre and on Broadway in 2013.
Jeff Melvoin is an American television writer, producer, and educator. He has written dozens and produced hundreds of one-hour episodes on over a dozen television series.
The first season of the ABC American television drama series Scandal premiered on April 5, 2012 and concluded on May 17, 2012, with a total of 7 episodes.