Joel Fabiani

Joel Fabiani is an American actor born on September 28, 1936, in Watsonville, California, the youngest of three children with Italian, Austrian, Irish, and Native American ancestry. His family relocated frequently during his childhood, requiring him to attend seventeen different schools before graduating from high school. Following graduation, he served in the Army, then pursued a college degree in English, during which he developed an interest in acting. He subsequently trained for two years at the Actors Workshop in San Francisco, where he studied both acting and stagecraft, appearing in productions including The Alchemist (1960, as Kastril), Saint's Day, Twinkling of an Eye, and King Lear.

After completing his training in San Francisco, Fabiani relocated to New York and began working in summer stock and Off-Broadway productions. He appeared in One Way Pendulum in 1961 and served as understudy to Robert Shaw and Alan Bates in the Broadway production of The Caretaker that same year. His Broadway debut came in 1962 with The Affair, and he went on to perform in A Thousand Clowns, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Shakespeare productions including Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, and Henry IV, Part 1. He also participated in the U.S. tour of Beyond the Fringe in 1965. His Broadway career, which spanned from 1964 to 1974, included credits in Beyond the Fringe '65, The Rules of the Game, and Fool for Love. He appeared in Luigi Pirandello's The Rules of the Game in 1975 as Barelli, a production that was also featured in the PBS Great Performances series, and in Love for Love in 1974. Additional theater work included Ashes (1977, as Colin), the original run of I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road (1978, as Joe Epstein), and the courtroom drama As to the Meaning of Words (1981, as Alexander Thomas).

Early in his television career, Fabiani took on small roles in Love of Life, The Doctors, Look Up and Live, Dark Shadows, and Ironside. He also became the face of a cigarette advertising campaign, appearing in a series of commercials in which he played what he described as a watered-down James Bond character, typically dressed in a tuxedo and surrounded by women. His first significant television role came when he and his wife moved to the United Kingdom, where he co-starred in the British series Department S, first screened in 1969 and 1970. The show centered on a fictional branch of Interpol tasked with solving cases that had defeated other agencies, and Fabiani played Stewart Sullivan, the field team leader. The series was syndicated worldwide and at one point in the early 1970s was reported to be the most popular series in the world. Co-star Rosemary Nicols described Fabiani as a very sweet guy and extremely professional, while fellow cast member Peter Wyngarde and guest star Kate O'Mara also spoke highly of him.

Returning to the United States after Department S, Fabiani pursued an extensive television career. He played FBI agent Barris in the TV movie The Longest Night (1972) opposite David Janssen, then guest starred in numerous series including The FBI, Banacek, Barnaby Jones, Cannon, The Streets of San Francisco, The Rockford Files, Matt Helm, S.W.A.T., Starsky and Hutch, Columbo, and Black Sheep Squadron, taking on roles ranging from lawyers and doctors to pilots and gangsters. His TV movie appearances included Brenda Starr (1976) with Jill St. John, the Edgar Allan Poe Award–nominated One of My Wives Is Missing (1976) with Jack Klugman, The President's Mistress (1978) with Beau Bridges and Larry Hagman, and Attica (1980) with Morgan Freeman, which received multiple Emmy nominations and won one.

From the 1980s onward, Fabiani took on recurring roles in prime-time dramas. He appeared as publisher Alex Ward in Dallas and portrayed King Galen of Moldavia in Dynasty, whose son's wedding was interrupted by a terrorist attack that served as the show's famous season five cliffhanger finale. He also guest starred in Hotel and appeared in Falcon Crest as Dr. Quentin King. Later, he moved back to New York and transitioned into daytime dramas, serving as a temporary replacement for Michael Zaslow in the role of Roger Thorpe on Guiding Light on four separate occasions between 1991 and 1995. He played Jared Chase in The City in 1996, appeared as Winston Lowe in As the World Turns in 2000, and had a long-running role on All My Children from 1999 to 2010 as lawyer Barry Shire. He continued guest starring in primetime and cable series, including Murder, She Wrote, Third Watch, Law and Order, and Law and Order: Criminal Intent, the latter of which reunited him with Claire Bloom, with whom he had worked in the theater more than thirty years earlier. He also appeared in comedy series including The Cosby Show (1988), Strangers with Candy (2000), and Ed (2003).

Fabiani's film work includes Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), the Oscar-nominated Reuben, Reuben (1983), Tune in Tomorrow (1990), Dark Echoes (1977), and Snake Eyes (1998). Beyond acting, he appeared as a presenter in theater documentaries, including Ghosts of Glory, a documentary about Eugene O'Neill and his plays.