Robert Ginty

Robert Winthrop Ginty, born November 14, 1948, in Brooklyn, New York, was an American actor, producer, screenwriter, and director who died of cancer in Los Angeles on September 21, 2009, at the age of 60. The son of Elsie M. (née O'Hara), a government worker, and Michael Joseph Ginty, a construction worker, he developed an early interest in the arts and music, playing drums alongside Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana, and John Lee Hooker. He pursued formal training at Yale University, the Neighborhood Playhouse, and the Actors Studio before establishing himself in regional theater and on Broadway.

Ginty appeared on Broadway in 1972 in Don Juan. His stage work continued through the regional circuit, including a stint with the New Hampshire Shakespeare Festival Summerstock Company under director Jon Ogden in 1973, a performance that led Harold Prince to hire him as an assistant. Ginty worked in theater until relocating to Hollywood in the mid-1970s to pursue film and television work.

His screen career began with supporting roles, including appearances in Larry Peerce's Two-Minute Warning (1976) and two films directed by Hal Ashby: Bound for Glory (1976) and Coming Home (1978), the latter starring Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, and Bruce Dern and nominated for eight Academy Awards. During this period he also held a recurring role on the television series The Paper Chase and starred alongside Robert Conrad in the NBC series Baa Baa Black Sheep.

Ginty achieved his breakthrough as an action film lead in James Glickenhaus's The Exterminator (1980), a vigilante film in which he played a Vietnam veteran who turns to vigilantism after his friend, played by Steve James, is attacked and paralyzed by a street gang. The film grossed $35 million at the box office. He reprised the role in Exterminator 2 (1984), though that production underwent significant reshoots and re-editing and received poor reviews.

Throughout the 1980s, Ginty starred in a succession of action films, among them The Act (1982), White Fire (1984 or 1985), Mission Kill (1986), Programmed to Kill (1987), Three Kinds of Heat (1987), Codename: Vengeance (1989), and Out on Bail (1989). He also held recurring roles on the television series Hawaiian Heat, Simon & Simon, and Falcon Crest. In 1989 he made his directorial debut with The Bounty Hunter, in which he also starred.

Ginty formed his own production company, Ginty Films, and acquired shares in the special effects studio Introvision, distributing his productions domestically and internationally. Among the projects he wrote, produced, or directed were Gold Raiders (1983), filmed in Thailand, Cop Target (1990), shot in France, and Woman of Desire (1993). He also starred in and directed Vietnam, Texas (1990) and Lady Dragon (1992), and acted in Simon Wincer's Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991).

In the 1990s, Ginty shifted his focus primarily to directing episodic television, with credits including China Beach, Xena: Warrior Princess (1995), Nash Bridges (1996), Charmed (1998), and Tracker (2001). In the final years of his life he worked as a theater director in Canada, France, Ireland, and Italy, and served as an artist in residence at Harvard University.

Ginty resided at various times in Los Angeles, Dublin, Toronto, and Vancouver. He was married to actress Francine Tacker, with whom he had a son, actor James Francis Ginty, and was also previously married to actress Lorna Patterson, who appeared alongside Tacker in the short-lived sitcom Goodtime Girls. In 2003 he married Michelle Craske, and they remained together until his death. His papers from 1969 to 1997 are held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.