William Devane (Actor)

Actor William Devane attends the panel discussion for Crumbs. (Photo: Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images)

About William Devane

A stage-trained actor with a trademark toothy grin and a feral, sinister quality, William Devane has often played members of the Kennedy clan as well as other political figures or authoritarian characters. The Albany, New York native trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NYC and began his career in bit roles in New York Shakespeare Festival productions. His first role of substance was as the Robert Kennedy-inspired character battling with the title character (played by Stacy Keach) and his wife (Rue McClanahan) in the 1967 Off-Broadway satire "MacBird!". Devane earned widespread praise for his portrayal of McMurphy in the stage revival of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1971), but the actor remained virtually unknown to American audiences outside of New York until he became an overnight sensation for his Emmy-nominated portrayal of President John F Kennedy in the 1974 "ABC Theatre" presentation "The Missiles of October", which focused on the Cuban missile crisis.

Devane garnered another Emmy nod for his turn as the blacklisted radio commentator John Henry Faulk in "Fear on Trial" (CBS, 1975) and in 1979 received a then record-breaking salary from NBC to star as Master Sgt. Milt Warden (Burt Lancaster's role) in the miniseries remake of "From Here to Eternity" and its subsequent short-lived series. Devane's TV star rose higher when he joined the sputtering CBS primetime soap "Knots Landing" in 1983 as the manipulative Greg Sumner, a role he played until the show ended its run a decade later. He then jumped immediately into "Phenom" (1993-94), a short-lived ABC sitcom which cast him as a tennis coach sparring with the mother of a hot teen prospect. He turned up as the patriarch of a political family (not unlike the Kennedys) in "The Monroes" (ABC), but its placement opposite NBC's popular "Seinfeld" made it one of the first casualties of the 1995-96 season. Later, CBS placed Devane in "Turks" (1999), hoping that the charismatic actor's presence might help derail NBC's potent Thursday night line-up. Inevitably, "Turks" lost its head-to-head battle with "Frasier.”

Devane has starred in many other TV-movies and miniseries, including the lavish NBC miniseries version of "Black Beauty" (1978), the ABC movie "The Big Easy" (1982, in which he essayed tough private detective Jake Rubidoux), the first-rate time-travel pic "Timestalkers" (CBS, 1987) and "A Woman Named Jackie", the 1991 NBC miniseries for which he limned the role of John Vernou Bouvier III. Looking like Lucifer himself, Devane sported a goatee to play Dr Richard Ofshe in "Forgotten Sins" (ABC, 1996), based on the headline case about a daughter whose memory of her father's sexual abuse allegedly surfaced years later and wreaked havoc on her parents, siblings and the legal system. After reprising his best-known role of Greg Sumner in the reunion TV-movie "Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-De-Sac" (CBS, 1997), he starred as Tom Kincaid in the routine CBS drama "Miracle on the Mountain: The Kincaid Family Story" (2000) and portrayed a murdered man who travels back in time to find his killer in the Fox Family Channel's "The Man Who Used to Be" (lensed 2000).

Because of his TV success, Devane's film career has been sporadic. He had small roles in "Pursuit of Happiness" and "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" (both 1971), but his first substantial part was the double-crossing agent Janeway in John Schlesinger's "Marathon Man" (1976). Following a turn as a kidnapper in Alfred Hitchcock's disappointing final film "Family Plot" (1976), Devane displayed his comic abilities as a little league coach in "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training" (1977), then reunited with Schlesinger for "Yanks" (1979) and "Honky Tonk Freeway" (1981). He was also outstanding as Tom Wetherly, the husband who disappears in San Francisco during a nuclear attack, in "Testament" (1983), a feature originally made for PBS' "American Playhouse". He had small roles in the undistinguished "Vital Signs" (1990) and "Chasers" (1994) before surfacing as a Chicago gangster who meets his match in Mel Gibson in "Payback" (1999). Suddenly there was a demand for the talented character actor, and he appeared in Paul Verhoeven's special effects extravaganza "The Hollow Man", played an ex-con turned lawyer helping out his grandson in "Poor White Trash" and joined Clint Eastwood's crew of over-the-hill astronauts in "Space Cowboys" (all 2000).

In “The Badge” (Starz!, 2002), originally shot as a feature but turned into a direct-to-cable film, Devane played a political fixer covering up the murder of a transsexual investigated by a small-town sheriff (Billy Bob Thornton) dealing with his brother’s homosexuality. After playing an estranged dad on an episode of “Judging Amy” (CBS, 1999-2005), he was a rival rocket-builder trying to sabotage NASA’s attempt to launch a chimp through the stratosphere in “Race to Space” (2002). He next starred in “A Christmas Visitor” (Hallmark, 2002), playing a father grieving the loss of his son in the first Gulf War. After picking up a mysterious hitchhiker who resembles his son, he and his wife (Meredith Baxter) witness the young man perform a series of miracles that help them cope with their son’s death. He appeared as a colonel in the straight-to-vide crime thriller “Control” (2002), then had supporting roles in “Monte Walsh” (TNT, 2003), a western about an aging cowboy (Tom Selleck) who realizes the West is changing despite his best efforts, and “Deceit” (Lifetime, 2004), a thriller based on a BBC miniseries about a woman (Marlo Thomas) who learns of her wealthy husband’s past when she becomes a suspect in his murder.

Devane joined the cast of “24” (Fox, 2001- ) during its fourth season, playing Secretary of Defense James Heller. On a return run to Washington from Los Angeles, Heller takes a detour to visit his estranged son only to have his daughter and aide get kidnapped by Middle Eastern terrorists. He then appeared as a regular on the ABC sitcom, “Crumbs” (2005- ), playing the patriarch of a small-town Connecticut family who own and operate a restaurant. Devane was a philandering father whose peccadilloes drove his wife (Jane Curtain) off the edge and into the insane asylum. Meanwhile, his closeted gay son (Fred Savage) returns home after failing to become a writer in Hollywood and is forced to work with his estranged, skirt-chasing brother (Eddie McClintock). “Crumbs” was ordered to series midseason in 2006 and faired well enough in the ratings to get a network order of 12 episodes.

Notes

"There's no high art that motivated me to go into this business. I wanted to be John Wayne. And to be perfectly candid, I was interested in being successful. That's what drove me more than anything." --William Devane in The New York Times, October 15, 1995.

"When you cast Bill Devane, you get someone who walks on the set and there's an instant presence. It's like watching a field general walk on the battlefield. Like Patton. He's a presence. He walks on the set and there's instant charisma. He walks on the set and it changes." --director Vern Gillum in The New York Times, October 15, 1995.

An avid horseman, Devane raises thoroughbreads for the racetrack and the polo fields.

Devane has directed stage productions like the 1979 Off-Broadway play "G.R. Point" and L.A. productions of the black-list drama "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?" and the locker room drama "The Changing Room", as well as helming several episodes of "Knots Landing" during its long run.

Hollywood lore has it that Devane was the first actor considered for the role of Sam the bartender of "Cheers". According to the story, he insisted on testing for the role in bare feet and cut them on broken glass, rendering him unavailable for the pilot and subsequent series.

Some sources list Mr Devane's birthyear as 1939 while others say 1940.