Sam Waterston

Sam Waterston
Sam Waterston displaying gifts from fans
Born	Samuel Atkinson Waterston
Occupation	actor
Years active	1967 — present
Spouse(s)	Barbara Rutledge (1964-1969) Lynn Louisa Woodruff (1976-)

This article is about the American actor. For Waterston (disambiguation), see Sam Waterston (disambiguation).

Samuel Atkinson Waterston (born November 15 1940) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor noted particularly for his portrayal of Jack McCoy on the long-running NBC television series Law & Order. He has also appeared in many feature films.

Biography

Early life

Waterston, one of four siblings, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father, George Chychele Waterston, was an immigrant from Leith, Scotland and was a semanticist and language teacher. His mother, Alice Tucker Atkinson, was an American Mayflower descendant and worked as a landscape painter. Waterston attended both the Brooks School, a boarding school in North Andover, Massachusetts, and the Groton School. He entered Yale University on a scholarship in 1958 and graduated with a BA in 1962. After graduating from Yale, he attended the Clinton Playhouse for several months. Waterston also attended the Sorbonne in Paris and the American Actors Workshop.

Career

The classically trained Waterston has quite a few stage credits to his name. For example, he played an award-winning Benedick in Joseph Papp's production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, and played the title character in Hamlet. He continues live theater work during the summers, often seen acting at places like Longwharf Theater and the Yale "Rep" in New Haven.

Waterston made his film debut in Fitzwilly in 1967. He starred with Katharine Hepburn in a 1973 TV movie adaptation of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. The film also featured Michael Moriarty, whom Waterston later replaced as the Executive Assistant District Attorney many years later on Law & Order. Other films include Savages (1972), The Great Gatsby (1974), Journey Into Fear (1975), Capricorn One (1978), Heaven's Gate and Hopscotch (1980), The Killing Fields (1984, nominated Academy Award for Best Actor), Mindwalk (1990), Serial Mom (1994) and Woody Allen's Interiors (1978), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986, cameo), and Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Waterston is a six-time Emmy Award nominee as well as a winner of the Golden Globe 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, voiced Lincoln in an exhibit at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, and delivered Lincoln's Cooper Union speech on May 5, 2004.

Waterston has appeared in episodes of four different series with Richard Belzer: Law & Order, Homicide: Life on the Street, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Trial by Jury. He also made a popular 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.

Waterston lent his voice to the popular animated television series Family Guy where he played Dr. Kaplan, the psychiatrist Brian Griffin consulted during his mid-life crisis in the episode "Brian in Love". 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. Waterston also narrated NBC's documentary, The Great Race, the story of the famous 4 x 10-kilometer cross-country relay at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, which Italy won over the host nation. The special aired during NBC's coverage of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, on February 18, the day before the 2006 relay took place, which was also won by Italy. He added partial narration to the PBS documentary, Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, serving as the voice of Thomas Jefferson. He also appeared in the first episode of ABC's Masters of Science Fiction, playing an amnesiac in the episode "A Clean Escape."

Waterston appeared on the 5,100th edition of Jeopardy!, on November 10, 2006, with Kathryn Erbe of Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Christopher Meloni of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Waterston finished second to Meloni, and received a $25,000 prize, which he donated to Refugees International and Oceana.

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 Law & Order castmate Steven Hill as TD's spokesman. Also, he has lent his voice to an ad for The Nation.

Waterston has also appeared in a recurring segment on The Colbert Report, called "Sam Waterston Says Things You Should Never Believe In A Trustworthy Manner". The segments usually involve Waterston simply stating an obviously untrue film quote in a very convincing voice.

Waterston is set to appear as Polonius in the 2008 Shakespeare in the Park production of Hamlet .

Personal life

An active humanitarian, Waterston donates considerable time to organizations such as Refugees International, Meals on Wheels, The United Way, and The Episcopal Actors' Guild of America. Waterston, a practicing Episcopalian, narrated the 1999 biographical documentary of Episcopal civil rights martyr Jonathan Myrick Daniels, Here Am I, Send Me.

A political independent, he is a spokesman for the Unity08 movement, which seeks to run a non- or bipartisan presidential ticket in the 2008 U.S Presidential Election. In 2002, Waterston and fellow Law & Order castmate Jerry Orbach were honored as "Living Landmarks" by the New York Landmarks Conservancy.

Waterston is a longtime friend and fan of the Mark Morris Dance Group and hosted the television presentation of Mozart Dances on PBS's Live From Lincoln Center, August 16, 2007.

Filmography

• The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean (1965) - Andy
• Fitzwilly (1967) - Oliver
• Generation (1969) - Desmond
• Three (1969) - Taylor
• Cover Me Babe (1970) - Cameraman
• Who Killed Mary What's 'Er Name? (1971) - Alex
• Mahoney's Estate (1972) - Felix
• Savages (1972) - James, the Limping Man
• The Glass Menagerie (1973) - Tom Wingfield
• The Great Gatsby (1974) - Nick Carraway
• Rancho Deluxe (1975) - Cecil Colson
• Journey into Fear (1975) - Mr. Graham
• Sweet Revenge (1976) - Le Clerq
• Capricorn One (1978) - Lt. Col. Peter Willis
• Interiors (1978) - Mike
• Eagle's Wing (1979) - White Bull
• Sweet William (1980) - William
• Hopscotch (1980) - Joe Cutter
• Heaven's Gate (1980) - Frank Canton
• Oppenheimer (1982) - J. Robert Oppenheimer
• Q.E.D. (1982) Professor Quentin Everett Deverill
• The Killing Fields (1984) - Sydney Schanberg
• The Boy Who Loved Trolls (1984) - Ofoeti
• Warning Sign (1985) - Cal Morse
• Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) - David (cameo)
• Just Between Friends (1986) - Harry Crandall
• Flagrant désir (1986) - Gerry Morrison
• Devil's Paradise (1987) - Mr. Jones
• September (1987) - Peter
• Lincoln (1988) - Abraham Lincoln
• Welcome Home (1989) - Woody
• Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) - Ben
• A Captive in the Land (1990) - Royce
• Mindwalk (1990) - Jack Edwards
• The Man in the Moon (1991) - Matthew Trant
• David's Mother (1994) - John Nils
• Serial Mom (1994) - Eugene Sutphin, D.D.S.
• The Enemy Within (1994) - President William Foster
• The Journey of August King (1995) - Mooney Wright, Producer
• Nixon (1995) - Richard Helms (scenes deleted)
• The Proprietor (1996) - Harry Bancroft
• Shadow Conspiracy (1997) - The President
• The Matthew Shepard Story (2002) - Dennis Shepard
• Le Divorce (2003) - Chester Walker
• The Commission (2003) - J. Lee Rankin

Awards

Academy Awards

Nominee: 1985 - Best Actor in a Leading Role, "The Killing Fields"

Primetime Emmys

Nominee: 2000 - Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, "Law & Order"
Nominee: 1999 - Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, "Law & Order"
Nominee: 1998 - Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, "Law & Order"
WINNER: 1996 - Outstanding Informational Series, "Lost Civilizations"
Nominee: 1994 - Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or TV Special, "I'll Fly Away: Then and Now"
Nominee: 1993 - Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, "I'll Fly Away"
Nominee: 1992 - Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, "I'll Fly Away"
Nominee: 1974 - Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama, "The Glass Menagerie"

Golden Globe Awards

Nominee: 1995 - Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series - Drama, "Law & Order"
WINNER: 1993 - Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series - Drama, "I'll Fly Away"
Nominee: 1992 - Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series - Drama, "I'll Fly Away"
Nominee: 1985 - Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama, "The Killing Fields"
Nominee: 1983 - Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV, "Oppenheimer"
Nominee: 1975 - Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture, "The Great Gatsby"
Nominee: 1975 - Most Promising Newcomer - Male, "The Great Gatsby"

Screen Actors Guild

Nominee: 2004 - Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, "Law & Order"
Nominee: 2002 - Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, "Law & Order"
Nominee: 2001 - Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, "Law & Order"
Nominee: 2000 - Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, "Law & Order"
WINNER: 1999 - Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, "Law & Order"
Nominee: 1999 - Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, "Law & Order"
Nominee: 1999 - Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, "Law & Order"
Nominee: 1998 - Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, "Law & Order"
Nominee: 1997 - Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, "Law & Order"

External links

• Sam Waterston at IMDb
• Please use a more specific IBDB template. See the documentation for available templates.
• Waterston's profile at the official Law & Order website