Tim DeKay

Timothy Robert DeKay was born on June 12, 1963, in Lansing, New York, to Jim DeKay and Jill Vaughn. He grew up in Lansing alongside his brother Jamey. As a student at Lansing High School, DeKay participated in varsity basketball and baseball, the latter a tradition carried across generations in his family, and performed in a school production of Oliver!. He enrolled at Le Moyne College with the intention of pursuing business or law, playing baseball there as well, and graduated in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in business administration. His interests shifted toward theater during that period, and he subsequently took directing courses at Syracuse University before earning a Master of Fine Arts degree from Rutgers University, where he also met actress Elisa Taylor, who would become his wife.

DeKay built his stage career across Broadway and off-Broadway productions. In 1992 he appeared on Broadway in the play The Show Off. His additional theatrical work includes Ridiculous Fraud at the McCarter Theatre, Billy Budd at the Circle in the Square Theatre, Someone to Watch Over Me with the Denver Theatre Company, The Merchant of Venice on the Hartford Stage, and a national tour of The Lion in Winter.

His screen career began with a role as corporation head Larry Deon on seaQuest 2032. He appeared in two episodes of Seinfeld, "The Soul Mate" and "The Bizarro Jerry," as Elaine's boyfriend Kevin. DeKay was a cast member of Party of Five from 1997 to 1999 and co-starred in the 2000 film Big Eden as Dean Stewart. He appeared in Carnivàle from 2003 to 2005 and in Tell Me You Love Me in 2007, and later played a recurring character in The New Adventures of Old Christine. His guest credits include Friends, CSI, My Name Is Earl, NCIS, Scrubs, and Chuck.

In 2009, DeKay took on the lead role of FBI agent Peter Burke in the USA Network series White Collar, which ran through 2014. He made his directorial debut within the series with the episode "Stealing Home," which premiered in 2012. That same year he directed and produced the short film This Monday, which screened at the Cannes Short Film Corner and the Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films. In 2016 he played Duvall Pritchard in the Fox Television sci-fi drama Second Chance. In June 2024, DeKay confirmed at Variety's TV Fest that he would return as Peter Burke in a revival titled White Collar Renaissance, noting that the new script addresses unresolved questions from the original series and pays tribute to Willie Garson, who played Mozzie.

DeKay is a member of the Actors Studio and has taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California. In May 2010 he returned to Le Moyne College as commencement speaker and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. He and Elisa Taylor live in Los Angeles and have a daughter, Danna, and a son, Jamis.