Donald Moffat

Donald Moffat (December 26, 1930 – December 20, 2018) was a British-American actor born in Plymouth, Devon, the only child of Kathleen Mary (née Smith) and Walter George Moffat, an insurance agent of Scottish descent. The family operated a boarding house in Totnes. Moffat attended King Edward VI School before completing national service in the Army from 1949 to 1951, after which he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. His earliest professional stage work was with the Old Vic Theatre Company.

Following his relocation to the United States, Moffat supported himself through a range of jobs, including bartending and working as a lumberjack in Oregon, his wife's home state, as well as carpentry, while his wife took in ironing to supplement his $25-per-week acting salary in Princeton, New Jersey. He eventually joined the Association of Producing Artists, a Broadway repertory company, and built a stage career spanning from 1957 to 1995. His Broadway credits include Hamlet, Cock-A-Doodle Dandy, Father's Day, The Wild Duck, Right You Are If You Think You Are, The Iceman Cometh, Play Memory, The Heiress, The Cherry Orchard, Much Ado About Nothing, The School for Scandal, The Affair, and A Few Stout Individuals, in which he played Ulysses S. Grant. Off-Broadway, he appeared in Painting Churches, for which he received an Obie Award.

Moffat received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play in 1967 for his work in the revivals of Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck and Pirandello's Right You Are If You Think You Are. He earned Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Actor in a Play for Play Memory in 1984 and for Outstanding Featured Actor for his role in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh in 1986, the latter production starring Jason Robards.

His film work included the role of Garry, the station commander, in The Thing (1982), Lyndon B. Johnson in The Right Stuff (1983), the U.S. president in Clear and Present Danger, and a leading role as a recovering alcoholic in On the Nickel (1980). On television, Moffat played Enos in the CBS miniseries The Chisholms, Lars Lundstrom in the ABC drama The New Land, and Rem in the CBS science-fiction series Logan's Run. He appeared in Tales of the City (1993), in which his portrayal of dying executive Edgar Halcyon drew significant attention, as well as in Columbo, Little House on the Prairie, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and The West Wing. He played attorney Joe Ruah in the CBC miniseries The Sleep Room, earning a Gemini Award nomination in 1998. Among his final roles was Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick in the HBO film 61*, and a judge in a 2005 episode of Law & Order: Trial by Jury.

Moffat married actress Anne Murray in 1954; the couple had a daughter, Wendy, and a son, Gabriel, before divorcing in 1968. He later married actress Gwen Arner. Moffat died on December 20, 2018, in Sleepy Hollow, New York, from complications of a stroke, at the age of 87.