A tall, blond player of American film and stage with affecting eyes and a keen ability to elicit sympathy even if on the wrong side of good and evil, Terry Kinney is known within show business as one of the founders (along with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich, among others) of the prestigious Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. Kinney made his stage debut soon after Steppenwolf was founded in 1976 playing Murphy in a production of "The Indian Wants the Bronx". He has since gone on to play a host of roles, including Preacher Jim Casy in the award-winning production of "The Grapes of Wrath" which also went to Broadway and was later taped for PBS. Kinney directed "And a Nightingale Sang" in 1981 and Kinney starred in "Orphans" (1984), both of which were later produced in NYC. He returned to Broadway in 1996 co-starring in Sam Shepard's "Buried Child", directed by Gary Sinise.
Kinney made his feature film debut in 1985 playing a burnt out Peace Corps volunteer in "A Walk on the Moon". In 1986, he was in "No Mercy", as a member of a socially prominent New Orleans family whose interest in Kim Basinger makes him susceptible to a gangster and was a potentially sleazy photographer in "Seven Minutes in Heaven". He was John Cameron, the friend of Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) and a settler whose family is murdered by Huron warriors and 'Les Francais' in "The Lost of the Mohicans" (1992). Kinney had one of his best chances the next year in Sydney Pollock's "The Firm", in which he was the younger partner who was supposed to look out after Tom Cruise. He starred in "The Body Snatchers" (also 1993), the updated remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", and was the rich Brahmin who loves Jennifer Beals but cannot marry her in "Devil in a Blue Dress" (1995).
Kinney had an auspicious TV debut in the miniseries "Murder Ordained" (CBS, 1987), as a charismatic minister who begins an affair with JoBeth Williams and then convinces her they should each murder their spouses so they can be together. In 1993, he was Joseph Kennedy Sr. in the longform, "JFK: Reckless Youth." For two seasons (1987-89), he appeared on ABC's "thirtysomething" as the beau of Ellyn (Polly Draper) and more recently has portrayed the prison administrator on the HBO series "Oz" (1997- ).