William Devane is a retired American stage, television and film actor. President John F. Kennedy and U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy on TV and in movies due to his “Kennedyesque” appearance.
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Early life and family
William Joseph Devane was born on September 5, 1939, in Albany, New York, to a father Joseph Devane of Irish descent and an unnamed mother of German and German ancestry. Dutch. His father would have been the driver of the 32n/a US President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he was still Governor of New York, and his mother reportedly owned a bar. Little other information is available about his life growing up, or his family.
Education background
He reportedly attended four high schools in four years in Albany, but there is no information on which one he enrolled in. Devane graduated in 1962 from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA) in Manhattan, New York.
Career
First steps
After high school, Devane went to New York and worked as a carpenter and electrician for Joseph Papp, who was a theater manager, producer, and founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival (NYSF), now known as Shakespeare in the Park. He begged Papp until he put him on stage; he watched George C. Scott’s performance and learned from him. William was in Papp Production’s Shakespearian plays on the public school circuit and in 15 NYSF plays. It is said that his first role was that of a doorman in “Macbeth”, and that he had his first speech in “The Merchant of Venice”.
In 1967 he starred as Robert Kennedy, or Robert Ken O’Dunk in the Off-Broadway play, “MacBird.” It was a satirical skit by Barbara Garson, and with director/screenwriter Roy Levine he made it into an integral play that incorporated all 35e The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in the history of William Shakespeare’s tragedies, namely “Macbeth”, “Richard III” and “Hamlet”. It premiered on February 22, 1967, just four years after Kennedy’s assassination, at The Village Gate Theater, believed to be the only one willing to stage the play. The highly successful but controversial play closed after 386 performances on January 21, 1968.
He made his acting debut in 1967 with “In the Country”, which was written and directed by Robert Kramer.
His television debut was in an episode of ABC’s crime drama series “NYPD” which featured stories based on real-life New York Police Department cases, and he appeared in two more episodes between 1967 and 1969. Devane made his Broadway debut in 1969 in Lyle Kessler’s “The Watering Place,” but was unsuccessful and had to close after just one performance.
It was after “MacBird” and while he was performing plays at the Shakespeare Festival that actor Warren Beatty and director/screenwriter Robert Altman came along and cast him as the lawyer, Clement Samuels, in the revisionist western or the anti-western film. , “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” (1971). The film received critical acclaim and was deemed “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant”, so it was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Additional success
Movies
He played the character of Jock Fenner in the French-Italian comedy “Lady Liberty” in 1971, alongside Sophia Loren who played the main role. Susan Sarandon and Danny DeVito were also in the film, which was filmed in Rome and New York but received negative reviews from critics. In 1976, Devane was cast as the missing heir-turned-kidnapper in Alfred Hitchcock’s last film, the comedy thriller “Family Plot.” This film which also starred Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris and Karen Black made $13.2 million against a budget of $4.5 million. He also appeared in the 1976 thriller “Marathon Man” starring Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier. It was well received not only by critics but also by audiences grossing over $28 million against a budget of $6.5 million.
1977’s “Rolling Thunder” was an action thriller starring Devane as the main lead, starring Tommy Lee Jones. It was highly successful both commercially, grossing approximately $130 million against a budget of $5 million, and critically with favorable reviews. Other notable films he directed were the 2000 adventure film, “Space Cowboys,” starring Tommy Lee Jones and Clint Eastwood; the 2000 sci-fi thriller, “Hollow Man,” starring Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue; and “The Dark Knight Rises” in 2012.
His last film was in 2014 with a cameo role as NASA’s Williams in the dystopian sci-fi film, “Interstellar”, which starred Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Michael Caine. With a production budget of $165 million, it grossed over $650 million worldwide and Rotten Tomatoes gave it an approval rating of 72% from over 300 reviews and a rating of 74 out of 100 from 46 reviews in Metacritic.
William directed over 45 films and performed a variety of roles from 1967 to 2015.
Television
William starred as President John F. Kennedy, starring Martin Sheen as United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, in the made-for-television documentary drama “The Missiles of October” in 1974. He was based on the book, “Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis”, by Robert Kennedy, in which he compares Barbara W. Tuchman’s book “The Guns of August” (1962) on the events leading up to the World War I to the Cuban Missile Crisis, between the United States and the Soviet Union with Cuba at the center of it, who nearly sparked a global nuclear war, and how they avoided it Devane was praised for his portrayal of the President in this two and a half hour production.
William landed the role of John Henry Faulk in the TV movie “Fear on Trial”, in 1975, based on the book of the same title Faulk wrote in 1963. It was about his experience of being blacklisted in the 1950s on the radio, because he was falsely accused of being a communist by the organization AWARE, Inc.; he filed a lawsuit against them and won. This helped end the period of blacklisting in Hollywood promoted by Senator McCarthy’s anti-Communist hearings. The CBS TV movie won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Special Program, and his performance was also recognized as he was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series.
“Landing Knots”
The CBS prime-time soap opera ‘Knots Landing’ was a spin-off of the hit 1978 CBS series ‘Dallas’ – the story revolved around four married couples residing in the cul-de- fictional bag of Sea View Circle in a suburb of Los Angeles.
It premiered on December 27, 1979, and William joined the soap opera as part of the main cast in season five (1983-1984) as Greg Sumner, a United States senator turned businessman, continuing until the end of its run in Season 14 (1992–93). His role as the male antagonist was only supposed to be for eight to ten episodes, but his character was well received and loved by viewers, and he survived until the end. The soap opera had 14 seasons (1979-1993) with 344 episodes, and Devane was in 10 seasons with 269 episodes. The series’ ratings peaked in the fifth season around the time it became part of the soap opera. The four-hour miniseries, “Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac”, was released in two parts in May 1997, retaining most of its cast, including Devane, with the story starting four years after the end of the serial. .
Guillaume Devane
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He was also part of the reunion special, “Knots Landing Reunion: Together Again” in 2005, in which most of the original cast remembered working on the show, and also featured bloopers and clips from the show.
“24”
William was cast as US Secretary of Defense James Heller in this real-time action drama, ’24,’ which starred Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer, an agent in the counter-terrorism unit. . The series premiered on November 6, 2001 and ran for eight seasons with 192 episodes, the last airing on May 24, 2010. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Drama Series in 2004 and the Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Drama Series in 2006. Devane joined the series in season four and was in 20 episodes (2005-2007). The television series returned in 2014 as “24: Live another Day” which began four years after the events of the previous series’ last episode. William now played President James Heller and was in all 12 episodes of the show.
He portrayed a variety of characters in nearly 70 television series, specials and TV movies from 1967 to 2015.
Private life
William and Eugenie had known each other for a year before deciding to marry in 1961 – they had two sons, but lost their eldest, Bill, in a car accident. Joshua, the youngest, is also an actor.
The couple have been together for 59 years, having lived for over 30 years on their ranch at Thermal in the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs, California. It is a facility for polo players and trainers, and where polo matches are played and horses are bred. According to Devane, the ranch is 140 acres, but they live on only five acres, not as an owner but as a promoter. They have about 300 horses and 15 ranches all devoted to polo. They also have a homeowners association.
Interesting facts and rumors
- William changed his dialogue often in his “Knots Landing” scenes, and this was allowed by creator and co-executive producer, David Jacobs, who was very supportive of his actors and told the writers to trust instincts. actors. However, this created a conflict with the show’s writers. Once, the script given to him had a note on top that read, “Not a word of this can be changed on the floor.” According to him, he only changed the script to a certain extent in order to give more depth to the character and the scene, but he did not change the story. He actually wrote a few episodes of the show.
- He didn’t watch any episodes of “Knots Landing” before joining the soap. When asked in an interview if he watches TV, he said he tries to watch only real things and added: “I like watching real people in real situations because I learn from it.”
- He has been a member of PGA West for about 30 years and has often golfed for charity.
- It was said in a New York Times article published in 1975 that William changed his name from Devaney to Devane.
Appearance
Guillaume is 1.78 m (5 feet 10 inches) tall. He has white hair and blue eyes.
Net value
He is a successful film, television and theater actor and according to sources, his estimated net worth is around $6 million.