Paul McCrane

Paul McCrane is an American actor, television director, and singer born on January 19, 1961, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The son of Eileen C. (née Manyak) and James J. McCrane, Jr., he grew up in Richboro, Pennsylvania, and relocated to New York City following his 1978 graduation from Holy Ghost Preparatory School. He subsequently studied theatre at HB Studio in New York City.

McCrane's screen career began while he was still a teenager, with a brief appearance in Rocky II as a multi-fracture patient seeking Rocky's autograph on his head cast. His breakthrough came with the 1980 film Fame, in which he portrayed Montgomery MacNeil and served as lead vocalist on three songs from the film: "Dogs in the Yard," "Miles from Here," and "Is It Okay If I Call You Mine?" He also contributed a solo to "I Sing the Body Electric," a track included on the film's 1980 soundtrack album. Subsequent film roles included Frank Berry in The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), Emil Antonowsky in RoboCop (1987), Guard Trout in The Shawshank Redemption, and astronaut Pete Conrad in From the Earth to the Moon.

On Broadway, McCrane appeared in productions spanning 1982 to 1990, including The Iceman Cometh, The Curse of an Aching Heart, and Six Degrees of Separation. His television work has been equally extensive. He played the recurring character Dr. Robert "Rocket" Romano on the NBC medical drama ER, becoming a series regular from 1997 to 2003 and returning for one episode during the show's fifteenth and final season in 2008. He guest-starred in Seasons 5 and 6 of 24 as Graem Bauer and appeared in episodes of The X-Files, Ugly Betty, and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

In 2011, McCrane took on the recurring role of Assistant District Attorney Josh Peyton in the NBC series Harry's Law, produced by David E. Kelley, and won the Emmy Award for Guest Actor in a Drama Series for that performance. In 2019, he joined the cast of the CBS series All Rise in a recurring capacity.