Gerald McRaney

Gerald Lee McRaney was born on August 19, 1947, in Collins, Mississippi, the son of Clyde and Edna McRaney. He is of Scottish and Choctaw ancestry and grew up in Long Beach, Mississippi, where he graduated from Long Beach High School. He subsequently attended the University of Mississippi. Before establishing himself as an actor, McRaney worked in the Louisiana oil fields.

McRaney made his film debut in the 1969 low-budget slasher film Night of Bloody Horror, in which he played the lead character Wesley Stuart. Early in his television career, he accumulated guest appearances across a range of series, including Gunsmoke, Police Woman, Barnaby Jones, and The Dukes of Hazzard. He appeared in two different episodes of The Rockford Files as a receptionist and portrayed Tim Ryder, a heroin-addicted Vietnam War veteran, in an episode of Hawaii Five-O. He also appeared in multiple episodes of The Incredible Hulk in a variety of roles, including a jealous boyfriend, a jealous race car driver, an angry police officer, and a disturbed police chief. His early miniseries work included the role of Dr. Henderson in Women in White (1979) and Harry Owens, a town local, in Roots: The Next Generations (1979).

Broader recognition came with the CBS detective series Simon & Simon, which ran from 1981 to 1989, in which McRaney starred as Rick Simon alongside co-star Jameson Parker. During the same period, he appeared twice on the sitcom Designing Women and co-starred with Parker in the 1986 film Jackals. He followed Simon & Simon with the CBS family sitcom Major Dad (1989–1993), in which he played Major John McGillis, and later starred as Russell Greene in the CBS family drama Promised Land (1996–1999), a spinoff of Touched by an Angel in which he originated the character. He also portrayed business mogul Adam Brock in the final eight episodes of the CBS primetime soap opera Central Park West (1995–1996).

McRaney's television work continued across multiple networks and genres. He played General Alan Adamle in two episodes of NBC's The West Wing and took on a prominent role as gold prospector George Hearst in the third and final season of HBO's Deadwood (2005–2006). He starred as Johnston Green in the CBS post-apocalyptic series Jericho, serving as a series regular in its first season. Among his television film credits are Not Our Son (1995), A Holiday Romance (1999), Going for Broke (2003), and Ike: Countdown to D-Day (2004), in which he portrayed General George S. Patton.

In the 2010 film The A-Team, McRaney played the villainous General Morrison, and that same year he took on a recurring role as CIA handler Carlton Shaw in the NBC action drama Undercovers. He played General Luntz in the 2012 film Red Tails and Calvin in Heart of the Country the same year. From 2012 to 2015, he portrayed wealthy real estate developer Barlow Connally in the A&E/Netflix series Longmire. Between 2013 and 2017, he appeared in the Netflix series House of Cards as billionaire Raymond Tusk, the head of a nuclear energy corporation. In 2015, he appeared in the dark comedy Focus as Bucky Spurgeon and played Rev. Jake Owens, Dolly Parton's maternal grandfather, in Coat of Many Colors. During the eighth and final season of Castle in 2016, he appeared as recurring antagonist Mason Wood. From 2016 to 2022, McRaney appeared in the NBC drama This Is Us as Dr. Nathan Katowski, a role that earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. Beginning in 2014, he appeared in a recurring role on NCIS: Los Angeles as U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Hollace Kilbride, becoming a series regular in 2021 when the character was appointed director of the NCIS Special Projects Office in Los Angeles.

In addition to his screen work, McRaney has Broadway credits that include Dividing the Estate and The Exonerated, with his Broadway appearances dating to 2008. In the late 2000s, he also co-hosted the Outdoor Life Network hunting and shooting series The World of Beretta.

McRaney married actress Delta Burke on May 28, 1989, his third marriage. The two had met two years earlier when Burke made a guest appearance on Simon & Simon. In August 2004, McRaney underwent successful surgery for lung cancer in Houston, Texas. He has been a consistent supporter of military veterans and active-duty service members, visiting troops during Operation Desert Storm, Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in 1993, and Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti in 1994. He chaired the Department of Veterans Affairs' 2002 National Salute to Hospitalized Veterans campaign and has appeared in commercials for the Wounded Warrior Project. In 1992, he served as Bacchus in the Krewe of Bacchus at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Politically, McRaney cast his first presidential vote for Democrat Hubert Humphrey in 1968 but later identified as a Republican. He introduced Second Lady Marilyn Quayle at the 1992 Republican National Convention and endorsed incumbent President George H. W. Bush for re-election that year. In 2008, he supported Republican presidential candidate John McCain. McRaney has appeared in television commercials on behalf of the National Rifle Association dating back to 1987.