Michael McGuire

Michael J. McGuire (June 30, 1930 – December 15, 2017) was an American actor whose career spanned film, television, and theatre over more than four decades. Born in Wisconsin, he attended Beloit College before establishing himself as a working performer across multiple mediums.

McGuire's Broadway career began in 1964 with The Passion of Josef D. and continued through 2007, encompassing productions including Child's Play, Hay Fever, and That Championship Season. His performance in That Championship Season earned him a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance in 1972, an honor shared with castmates Charles Durning, Walter McGinn, Richard Dysart, and Paul Sorvino. The same performance also brought him an Outer Critics Circle Award. His final Broadway appearance came in August: Osage County, in which he played the patriarch Beverly Weston before retiring from performing in 2008.

His screen career began in 1968 with a role as Dr. Bryan Angell on the television soap opera One Life to Live. Over the following decades, McGuire accumulated an extensive list of television guest appearances, including Hawaii Five-O, Columbo, Mannix, Kojak, The Rockford Files, M*A*S*H, All in the Family, Family Ties, The Golden Girls, Knots Landing, Dark Shadows, Newhart, Remington Steele, Highway to Heaven, and The West Wing, among others. He also appeared in three episodes of Cheers as Professor Sumner Sloan, including the series pilot, and starred in the short-lived comedy series Empire.

McGuire's film work included Coming Apart, They Might Be Giants, Report to the Commissioner, Hard Times, The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, Bird, The Karen Carpenter Story, Jekyll and Hyde... Together Again, and A More Perfect Union: America Becomes a Nation, along with numerous other titles spanning from the late 1960s through the 1980s and beyond.

McGuire died on December 15, 2017, in Burbank, California, at the age of 87.