Bruce Davison

Bruce Davison is an American actor born on June 28, 1946, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who has accumulated more than 270 film, television, and stage credits since his professional debut in 1968. His parents divorced when he was three years old, and he was raised by his mother while spending weekends with his father. He graduated from Marple Newtown Senior High School in 1964 and initially enrolled at Penn State as an art major before discovering acting after accompanying a friend to an audition. He subsequently trained at New York University's acting program, completing his degree in 1969.

Davison made his Broadway debut in the drama Tiger at the Gates in 1968. His Broadway work also includes The Glass Menagerie, in which he starred alongside Jessica Tandy, and The Elephant Man, in which he portrayed John Merrick. His Broadway career spanned from 1968 to 1983. Beyond Broadway, he was cast by Joseph Papp in the Public Theater and New York Shakespeare Festival production of King Richard III in 1983. His Off-Broadway credits include Love Letters, The Cocktail Hour, and Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive. In Los Angeles, he appeared in Streamers and The Normal Heart, earning both the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and the Drama-Logue Award for those performances. Additional stage work includes The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, directed by Henry Fonda, and a stage adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird.

His film career began in 1969 when he appeared alongside Barbara Hershey, Richard Thomas, and Catherine Burns in Last Summer. The following year he played opposite Kim Darby in The Strawberry Statement, and in 1971 he took the title role in Willard, based on the novel Ratman's Notebooks, which became a cult horror film. He was an uncredited extra in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977, appearing as one of the pilots emerging from the mothership. His other film credits include Ulzana's Raid, Peege, Mame, Mother Jugs and Speed, Short Eyes, The Lathe of Heaven, Six Degrees of Separation, Spies Like Us, Runaway Jury, Apt Pupil, and Breach. He portrayed Howard Finnegan in Robert Altman's Short Cuts, Reverend Samuel Parris in the 1996 film adaptation of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, and Senator Robert Kelly in X-Men in 2000 and X2 in 2003.

In 1990, Davison portrayed a man whose partner is dying of AIDS in Longtime Companion, a performance that earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture, and an Independent Spirit Award. He continued to appear in films addressing the AIDS crisis, including The Cure in 1995, in which he played a physician sought by a young boy with AIDS, and It's My Party in 1996. Davison serves as a spokesperson for multiple organizations and is a board member of the industry AIDS organization Hollywood Supports.

His television work spans decades and includes recurring and guest roles on Hunter, Harry and the Hendersons, Marcus Welby M.D., The Waltons, Lou Grant, Murder She Wrote, Seinfeld, Chicago Hope, Law and Order Special Victims Unit, Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek Enterprise, Battlestar Galactica, Lost, Supernatural, Castle, Hawaii Five-0, the Stephen King miniseries Kingdom Hospital, and a recurring role on The Practice, among many others. He played Captain Wyler on Hunter from 1985 to 1989 and George Henderson on Harry and the Hendersons from 1991 to 1993. In 1978, he appeared as Dean Torrence in the biopic Deadman's Curve and played the title role in the television film Summer of My German Soldier. In 1981, he starred in The Wave as a history teacher who conducted an experiment in Nazi philosophy on his own students. In 2001, he directed the television film Off Season, starring Sherilyn Fenn, Rory Culkin, Hume Cronyn, and Adam Arkin. He is a nominee for both Daytime Emmy and Primetime Emmy Awards.

Davison has been married three times and has two children. His marriage to actress Jess Walton, which took place on May 20, 1972, was annulled in March 1973. He was subsequently engaged to actress Karen Austin. His marriage to actress Lisa Pelikan lasted from July 4, 1986 until April 2006, and the couple have a son, Ethan, born April 5, 1996. On April 30, 2006, Davison married Michele Correy, with whom he has a daughter, Sophia, born May 29, 2006. He and Correy reside in Woodland Hills, California.