David Purdham

David Purdham is an American character actor born on June 3, 1951, in San Antonio, Texas. Over the course of his career, he has accumulated credits across approximately one hundred film, television, and theatre productions.

Purdham made his Broadway debut in 1981, appearing in both The Little Prince and the Aviator and Piaf. His stage work extended beyond Broadway to include a 1982 production of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, a 1991 production of Absent Friends, and a 1993 production of The Seagull.

His screen career began in 1984 with his first film role in Lily in Love. Subsequent film appearances include Defending Your Life (1991), My Girl 2 (1994), Coronado (2003), and Fracture (2007). Purdham has also contributed voice work to video games and audiobooks.

Television has been a significant part of Purdham's career since 1980. He portrayed Father Emmerich on the soap opera Ryan's Hope from 1981 to 1985, and later played Fred Porter on One Life to Live from 1991 to 1992. His recurring television roles include Kate & Allie (1987), Babylon 5 (1997), JAG (1997 and 2001), Port Charles (2000), The Young and the Restless (2006), and General Hospital (2010–2011). Among his many guest appearances, he played Marc Guerin in the science fiction series Alien Nation in 1990, reprising the role in the 1994 television film Alien Nation: Dark Horizon. Additional guest credits span crime dramas such as Matlock (1994), Diagnosis Murder (1997), Boston Legal (2005), and Perception (2015), as well as comedies including Seinfeld (1996) and George Lopez (2004).