Dan Butler

Dan Butler is an American actor born Daniel Eugene Butler on December 2, 1954, in Huntington, Indiana, where he was raised in Fort Wayne. The son of Shirley, a homemaker, and Andrew Butler, a pharmacist, he pursued drama studies at Purdue University Fort Wayne, where he received the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship, sponsored by the Kennedy Center, in 1975. He subsequently trained at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco from 1976 to 1978.

Butler's Broadway career spans 1982 to 2018 and includes productions such as On the Twentieth Century, Biloxi Blues, The Hothouse, and Travesties. His most recent Broadway appearance came in 2018, when he portrayed Lenin in the revival of Tom Stoppard's Travesties. Prior to that, he appeared as Truman Capote in the American Repertory Theater's 2017 production of Rob Roth's Warhol/Capote, and in 2013 he played Jack in Conor McPherson's The Weir in an Off-Broadway production.

Television audiences know Butler primarily for his recurring role as Bob "Bulldog" Briscoe on the NBC sitcom Frasier, a volatile and intensely macho sports presenter who hosted the program following Frasier's daily broadcast at radio station KACL. Butler appeared in every season but one during the show's run from 1993 to 2004, reprising the role again in 2024. He also directed one episode during the series' fifth season. Earlier television work included the role of Art on Roseanne from 1991 to 1992, and he provided the voice of Mr. Simmons on the Nickelodeon animated series Hey Arnold! from 1997 to 2002, returning to the role in Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie in 2017.

Butler's film credits include two separate roles within the Hannibal Lecter franchise, making him one of only two actors to portray different characters across those films. He played Jimmy Price in Manhunter in 1986 and Roden in The Silence of the Lambs in 1991. Additional film work includes the role of NSA Director Admiral Shaffer in Enemy of the State in 1998, as well as appearances in Sniper 2, Prayers for Bobby, and Longtime Companion. In 2006, Butler produced, co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in the faux documentary Karl Rove, I Love You.

Butler wrote a one-man show, The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me, which opened in Los Angeles in 1994 and also ran in San Francisco and Off-Broadway in New York. The play, which featured ten characters exploring what being gay means, served as Butler's public coming out. He received a nomination for the 1995 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show. Butler lives in Vermont and is married to producer Richard Waterhouse.