David Ackroyd

David Ackroyd is an American actor born on May 30, 1940, in East Orange, New Jersey. At age 12, he relocated with his family to Wayne, New Jersey. His Broadway career spanned from 1971 to 1980, with credits including Epstein, Hide and Seek, Full Circle, and Children of a Lesser God. In 1971, he appeared in Unlikely Heroes, a production comprising three plays drawn from the stories of Philip Roth. He later replaced John Rubinstein in the lead role of James Leeds in Children of a Lesser God in 1981.

Ackroyd transitioned from stage work into television in the early 1970s, taking on daytime leading roles in the soap operas The Secret Storm, in which he played Kevin Kincade from 1971 to 1974, and Another World, where he portrayed Dr. Dave Gilchrist from 1974 to 1977. He went on to play Gary Ewing in two episodes of Dallas in 1978, a role that Ted Shackelford subsequently assumed when the character transferred to the spin-off series Knots Landing. Ackroyd later returned to Knots Landing as a guest performer, this time playing a separate character named Bill Medford.

His television work in the late 1970s included the miniseries The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, in which he played Nick Constantine, as well as The Word and the television films And I Alone Survived and Exo-Man. He portrayed Professor Friedrich Bhaer in the 1978 television adaptation of Little Women. In the 1980s, he co-starred in the short-lived series AfterMASH as Dr. Mark Boyer and in A Peaceable Kingdom as Dr. Bartholomew Langley. Supporting roles followed in the film The Mountain Men, in which he played Medicine Wolf, and in the television series Dark Angel and Xena: Warrior Princess, where he appeared as Anteus.

Ackroyd also contributed extensively to animated productions. He voiced John Cavanaugh and Prince Cavan in the animated series Wildfire and lent his voice to multiple characters in The New Yogi Bear Show, The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, and The New Adventures of Captain Planet. From the late 1990s into the 2000s, he narrated television documentaries including History's Mysteries and the UFO Files episode Alien Engineering.

In 1996, Ackroyd moved to Montana. In 2003, he co-founded the Alpine Theatre Project, a professional acting company based in Whitefish, Montana, where he served as artistic development director. The company hosted appearances by performers including Olympia Dukakis, John Lithgow, and Kelli O'Hara. In 2024, the Alpine Theatre Project announced a leadership transition, naming Tracy McDowell as artistic director and Cynthia Benkelman as executive director, while retaining Ackroyd and his co-founder to assist during the changeover.