Wayne Tippit

Gerald Wayne Tippit was born on December 19, 1932, in Lubbock, Texas. He began his academic career at what is now Texas Tech University, studying drama and speech, before transferring to the University of Iowa, where he earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1953. Following graduation, Tippit enlisted in the United States Army, where he produced a radio program. After leaving the military, he relocated to New York City to pursue a career in stage and television work.

Tippit arrived in New York in the late 1950s and quickly secured small parts on Broadway, appearing in the play Only in America and the comedy Tall Story. His Broadway career spanned from 1959 to 1987, with later credits including Gantry in 1970 and The Nerd in 1987–88, the latter directed by Charles Nelson Reilly. Also in 1959, he was cast as Jerry Ames on the CBS daytime soap opera The Secret Storm, a role he held for six years. During that same period, he worked as an advertising spokesman for several consumer products and was affiliated with the North Jersey Playhouse, where Robert Ludlum served as producer.

Throughout the 1960s, Tippit built a significant off-Broadway presence. He took over the title role in MacBird — a character widely understood as a caricature of President Lyndon B. Johnson — from Stacy Keach. In The Boys in the Band, he played Hank, a married schoolteacher who arrives at a birthday party with his male lover. In 1968–69, he assumed the lead in Werner Liepolt's The Young Master Dante at The American Place Theater. In the mid-1980s, he appeared in Lanford Wilson's autobiographical play Lemon Sky alongside Jeff Daniels and Jill Eikenberry.

Tippit's film work included Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon in 1970, Pipe Dreams in 1976, Rollercoaster in 1977, and the 1981 film Taps, in which he portrayed U.S. Army Master Sergeant Kevin Moreland, the father of Timothy Hutton's character. He also appeared in The Dream Team in 1989, Madhouse in 1990, and Oliver Stone's JFK in 1991, playing FBI agent Frank. On television, he portrayed FBI agent Dan Shore in three episodes of The Rockford Files in the early 1970s. In 1978, he joined the cast of the CBS daytime soap opera Search for Tomorrow as Ted Adamson, remaining with the series for five years.

Tippit and his family lived for many years in Ridgewood, New Jersey, before relocating to Los Angeles in 1990 following his diagnosis with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In Los Angeles, he pursued television work extensively, making guest appearances on Diagnosis: Murder, L.A. Law, Seinfeld, Murphy Brown, Quantum Leap, The X-Files, Matlock, and Tales from the Darkside. During the 1990s, he joined the cast of the Fox primetime soap opera Melrose Place, playing Palmer Woodward, the father of Heather Locklear's character, Amanda Woodward.

Tippit received a single lung transplant in 2000 as treatment for severe emphysema. He died of respiratory failure on August 28, 2009, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 76. He was survived by his wife, Carole Macho Tippit; daughters Sarah Tippit and Kate Tippit Avron; and four grandchildren.