Sam Waterston

A lanky, quietly intense, classically-trained actor, Sam Waterston entered film in the mid-1960s, most typically cast as pensive dreamers and intelligent yet essentially ordinary middle-class types. He languished in several forgettable features while piling up impressive credits on the New York stage until he scored as Tom in a fine TV adaptation of Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" (ABC, 1973), opposite Katharine Hepburn. Waterston garnered further attention and acclaim, and made his most significant inroads into features up until that time, as Nick Carraway in the glossy but otherwise middling adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" (1974).

A very persuasive and versatile performer with a slightly worried expression, the dark-haired Waterston has appeared in a series of Woody Allen films, beginning with "Interiors" (1978), including "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986) and culminating with a moving performance as the rabbi with failing eyesight in "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989). Conveying a thoughtful, sometimes anguished integrity, he gained perhaps his greatest acclaim in features for his Oscar-nominated work as journalist Sidney Schanberg, exploring the plight of the poor of Cambodia in Roland Joffe's "The Killing Fields" (1984). He also did well in the delicate period piece "The Man in the Moon" (1991) and proved a good choice for the average American father who happens to be married to a "Serial Mom" (1994) in John Waters' typically outrageous farce. In 1995, Waterston made his feature producing debut with "The Journey of August King", in which he also had a supporting role. Waterston's next entry into producing brought him to the small screen, where he worked behind the scenes as well as co-starring in the Showtime original movie "A House Divided" (2000). Here Waterston played a plantation owner who rapes one of his slaves and fathers a child who would become, after his death, a landowner and the wealthiest African-American woman in Georgia. Other notable TV-movie work included his portrayal of real-life hero Dr. Karl Koster, a Danish man who helped save Jewish lives during the Nazi's regime, in the ABC TV-movie "Miracle at Midnight" (1998, which reteamed him with frequent film co-star Mia Farrow). As Waterston's television career excelled, his work in film was more infrequent, but later big-screen credits included a featured role in the Ismail Merchant drama "The Proprietor" in 1996, a turn as the President of the United States in the political thriller "Shadow Conspiracy" in 1997 and, for Merchant-Ivory, in "Le Divorce" 2003, playing father to a pair of American expatirate sisters in Paris.

Stage work has kept Waterston perennially busy: he was a recurring presence with the New York Shakespeare Festival from 1963 until 1976 and won several acting awards for his Benedict in a 1972 production of "Much Ado About Nothing". He has subsequently performed on and off-Broadway in plays ranging from the seriousness of "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine" (1971) to the comical "Lunch Hour" (1980-81) and the poignant "A Walk in the Woods" (1988). Conveying a gentle, relaxed yet determined and craggy intensity, Waterston, with the convenient added merit of having bushy eyebrows, also played Abraham Lincoln in a 1993 revival of "Abe Lincoln in Illinois", recreating a role he had earlier played in the TV-movie, "Gore Vidal's Lincoln" (NBC, 1988).

TV has brought Waterston other rewarding roles, as in the absorbing miniseries "Oppenheimer" (PBS, 1982), in which he played the controversial physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb, and in TV-movies including "Friendly Fire" (ABC, 1979), "Finnegan Begin Again" (HBO, 1985) and "David's Mother" (CBS, 1994). He received great career exposure (and earned a pair of Emmy nods) with his role as a single father coping with dramatic social change in the 1950s South in the critically well-received, but low-rated series, "I'll Fly Away" (NBC, 1991-93). Waterston joined another intelligent dramatic series when he replaced Michael Moriarty as the resident assistant D.A. on NBC's "Law & Order" in 1994. The actor brought an alluring intensity and dedicated aggressiveness to the role of Jack McCoy, a motorcycle riding, possibly alcoholic lawyer. Injecting new life into the long-running series, Waterston earned three Emmy nominations for his starring role, which he would continue to play for a decade. He also earned critical accolades for his sensitive portrayal of Dennis Shepard, the father of slain gay gay college student Matthew Shepard in the television movie "The Matthew Shephard Story" (2002). The movie chronicles how Matthew's parents came to terms with his life and concluded that their response to the murder trial of their son's killer could end the cycle of hate.

• Also Credited As:
  Samuel Atkinson Waterston
• Born:
  November 15, 1940 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
• Job Titles:
  Actor, Producer

Family

• Daughter: Elizabeth Waterston. mother, Lynn Woodruff
• Daughter: Katherine B Waterston. mother, Lynn Woodruff
• Father: George Chychele Waterston. directed Waterston in a production of Antigone ; emigrated to the United States from Leith, Scotland during the Depression
• Mother: Alice Tucker Waterston. an American Mayflower descendant
• Son: Graham C Waterston. mother, Lynn Woodruff
• Son: James Waterston. born c. 1969; mother, Barbara Rutlegde Johns; attended from Yale; acted with father in 2000 stage production of Long Day s Journey Into Night

Education

• Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, BA
• Brooks School, North Andover, Massachusetts

Milestones

• 1947 Made stage debut aged six as the Page in Jean Anouilh s Antigone, directed by his father (date approximate)
• 1963 Broadway debu in Arthur Kopit s Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama s Hung You in the Closet and I m Feelin So Sad
• 1963 First appearance with the New York Shakespeare Festival (NYSF) in As You Like It
• 1964 TV debut in Camera Three (CBS)
• 1965 Made film debut in the unreleased feature, The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean
• 1967 First released feature, Fitzwilly
• 1968 Cast as Prince Hal in the NYSF productions of Henry IV, Part I and Henry IV, Part II
• 1969 Starred in Kopit s play Indians
• 1971 Had featured role in the Off-Broadway play The Trial of the Catonsville Nine
• 1972 Starred opposite Kathleen Widdoes in NYSF Central Park production of Much Ado About Nothing ; moved to Broadway and filmed for TV; aired on CBS in 1974
• 1973 Made first TV-movie; played Tom in an adaptation of Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie (ABC), starring Katharine Hepburn; garnered first Emmy nomination
• 1974 Co-starred with Tuesday Weld in the TV-movie Reflections on a Murder , loosely inspired by Diabolique
• 1974 First came to attention in a major film, The Great Gatsby ; played the narrator Nick Carraway; initial film collaboration with Mia Farrow
• 1976 Acted in the features Journey Into Fear and Dandy, the All American Girl
• 1978 Made first appearance in a Woody Allen film with a role in Interiors
• 1979 Had title role in the feature Sweet William
• 1979 Returned to TV-movies after five years to star opposite Carol Burnett and Ned Beatty in the acclaimed ABC drama Friendly Fire
• 1980 Featured in Hopscotch and Michael Cimino s disastrous Heaven s Gate
• 1982 Played physicist J Robert Oppenheimer in the seven-part PBS miniseries Oppenheimer
• 1982 Played physicist Quentin E Deverill on the short-lived CBS adventure series Q.E.D.
• 1984 Received Best Actor Oscar nomination for his leading role as an American journalist in Cambodia in the feature film The Killing Fields
• 1985 Co-starred with Mary Tyler Moore and Robert Preston in the HBO romance Finnegan Begin Again
• 1986 Appeared in Woody Allen s Hannah and Her Sisters
• 1987 Reteamed with Allen for September
• 1988 Played Abraham Lincoln in the two-part NBC movie, Gore Vidal s Lincoln ; Mary Tyler Moore co-starred as Mary Todd Lincoln
• 1988 Starred with Robert Prosky in A Walk in the Woods , a play dealing with arms negotiation between the US and the USSR; with Prosky, toured Soviet Union in 1989
• 1989 Fourth film with Allen, Crimes and Misdemeanors
• 1991 Co-starred in the period drama The Man in the Moon
• 1992 TV directorial debut, the Since Walter episode of I ll Fly Away , aired November 27
• 1993 Returned to the NYC stage to play Abraham Lincoln in a revival of Robert Sherwood s Abe Lincoln in Illinois ; received a Tony nomination
• 1994 Co-starred with Kirstie Alley in the acclaimed TV-movie David s Mother (CBS)
• 1994 Joined cast of the NBC police/lawyer series Law & Order in the role of assistant district attorney Jack McCoy, replacing Michael Moriarty; in 2007, his character was promoted to New York district attorney, filling the slot vacated by Fred Thompson s Arthur Branch; earned Emmy (1997, 1999, 2000) nominations
• 1994 Played the mild-mannered husband of Kathleen Turner s Serial Mom
• 1995 Feature film producing debut, The Journey of August King ; also played small role
• 1997 Played the U.S. President in the political thriller Shadow Conspiracy
• 1998 Featured as McCoy in Exiled: A Law & Order Movie (NBC)
• 1998 Starred as Dr Karl Koster, a savior of Danish Jews during the Nazi s reign of terror, in the fact-based TV-movie Miracle at Midnight (ABC); reteamed with Mia Farrow
• 2000 Produced the Showtime TV-movie A House Divided ; also co-starred as the plantation owner who fathered a biracial child
• 2000 Starred with son James Waterston in a production of Long Day s Journey Into Night at Syracuse Stage
• 2002 Co-starred in the NBC TV-movie, The Matthew Shepard Story
• Acted on Broadway in Benefactors alongside Glenn Close and Mary Beth Hurt
• Co-starred in the Broadway comedy Lunch Hour
• Had title role in the NYSF production of Hamlet
• Starred on TV series, I ll Fly Away (NBC); received Emmy nominations in 1992 and 1993