Ron Raines

Ron Raines is an American actor and musical theatre performer born on December 2, 1949, in Texas City, Texas. His father served as a minister in the Church of the Nazarene, and Raines developed an early interest in music through the church. He attended Nacogdoches High School in Nacogdoches, Texas, before earning his undergraduate degree from Oklahoma City University, which later awarded him an honorary Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 2021. He subsequently trained at Juilliard, after which he committed to a professional performing career. During his earlier years he was a member of a band called Renaissance.

Raines made his Broadway debut in the 1983 revival of Show Boat, portraying the role of Ravenal. He returned to Broadway in 1987 with Teddy & Alice, and in 2002 took on the role of Billy Flynn in the long-running revival of Chicago. His Broadway career extended through 2012 and encompassed additional productions including Follies, Newsies The Musical, and Annie. His portrayal of Ben Stone in Follies originated at the Kennedy Center, where the production ran from May 7 through June 19, 2011, alongside Bernadette Peters, Jan Maxwell, Danny Burstein, and Elaine Paige. Raines had previously played the same role in a 1988 Michigan Opera production featuring Juliet Prowse and Nancy Dussault. The Follies production transferred to Broadway's Marquis Theatre, where it ran from August 7, 2011, through January 22, 2012, and subsequently moved to the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles from May 3 through June 9, 2012. His performance earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical in 2012. Later that year, from October 9 through December 16, 2012, he appeared in Newsies The Musical on Broadway as Joseph Pulitzer, serving as a temporary replacement for John Dossett. He also stepped into the Broadway revival of Annie as Daddy Warbucks, replacing Anthony Warlow, from December 10, 2013, until the production closed on January 5, 2014.

Beyond Broadway, Raines has performed in a wide range of musical theatre productions, including South Pacific, Kiss Me, Kate, Can-Can, The King and I, Brigadoon, Oklahoma!, Carousel, The Pajama Game, Guys and Dolls, A Little Night Music, Kismet, and Man of La Mancha. In 1990 he played Johnny Brown in the Debbie Reynolds U.S. tour of The Unsinkable Molly Brown. In 1994 he was simultaneously offered a role in the national touring production of The Sound of Music with Marie Osmond and the television role of Alan Spaulding on Guiding Light, and he chose the latter. His operatic work includes a debut at New York City Opera as Danilo in The Merry Widow, with subsequent appearances in Naughty Marietta, Rose-Marie, The Gypsy Princess, The Desert Song, The New Moon, and Die Fledermaus.

Raines joined the cast of the television soap opera Guiding Light in 1994, becoming the third actor to portray Alan Spaulding. The role earned him three Emmy nominations, and he remained with the series through its cancellation in 2009. In 2013 he appeared in an episode of the CBS drama Person of Interest as Bruce Wellington, and in 2014 he made a guest appearance on the CBS drama Elementary as Ian. In 2020 he joined the cast of The Blacklist as Dominic Wilkinson, taking over the role from Brian Dennehy following Dennehy's death. His work in web series includes the 2013 online reboot of One Life to Live, in which he played Carl Peterson, and the 2014 soap opera web series Beacon Hill, where he portrayed Senator William Preston.

As a concert soloist, Raines has performed with symphony orchestras across the United States, including those in Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Minnesota, Omaha, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Tulsa, Utah, and Washington, D.C. He appeared with the Pittsburgh Symphony alongside Marvin Hamlisch and with the Philadelphia Pops under Peter Nero. He has also performed with the Boston Pops under both John Williams and Keith Lockhart, as well as with the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, the Jerusalem Symphony, and the Israeli Philharmonic. Raines has appeared in several PBS Great Performances specials and recorded two solo albums, So In Love With Broadway in 2004 and Broadway Passion, in addition to cast recordings including Man of La Mancha and The Pajama Game on the Jay Records label.

Raines and his wife, Dona D. Vaughn, have a daughter named Charlotte. He is a cousin of American self-help author Jaclyn Johnston.