David Hyde Pierce

Onstage, billed as David Pierce, the Yale graduate distinguished himself as Laertes to Kevin Kline's "Hamlet" (1986), toured the Soviet Union and Japan in "The Cherry Orchard" (1988-89) and won plaudits for his turn as a gay pediatrician opposite Christine Lahti in Wendy Wasserstein's award-winning "The Heidi Chronicles" (1989-90).

Pierce made his first brief screen appearance as a doomed trucker in James Cameron's "The Terminator" (1984). In …