William Atherton

William Atherton is an American actor born on July 30, 1947, in Orange, Connecticut. He studied acting at the Drama School at Carnegie Tech and earned his degree from Carnegie Mellon University in 1969. Following graduation, he pursued stage work in New York, collaborating with playwrights including David Rabe, John Guare, and Arthur Miller.

Atherton's Broadway career spanned from 1972 to 1983. His stage credits include The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, The American Clock, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, and Happy New Year. His early theatrical work earned him both a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance and a Theatre World Award, both in 1972.

His transition to film began with The Sugarland Express (1974), the feature debut of director Steven Spielberg, in which Atherton played fugitive Clovis Poplin. He followed that with prominent roles in The Day of the Locust (1975), The Hindenburg (1975), and Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). He also provided lead vocals for "What'll I Do," the main title theme for the Robert Redford film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. In 1978, he starred as cowboy Jim Lloyd in the television miniseries Centennial, based on the novel by James Michener.

Atherton became widely recognized for roles in two major film franchises. In Ghostbusters (1984), he played EPA agent Walter Peck, a role he later reprised in Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009) and Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024), in which the character serves as mayor of New York City. He portrayed reporter Richard Thornburg in Die Hard (1988) and returned to the role in Die Hard 2 (1990). Martha Coolidge cast him as Professor Jerry Hathaway in Real Genius (1985). Additional film credits include No Mercy (1986), The Pelican Brief (1993), Bio-Dome (1996), Mad City (1997), The Crow: Salvation (2000), The Last Samurai (2003), Grim Prairie Tales (1990), and the 2017 Netflix thriller Clinical. He also appeared in The Girl Next Door (2007), an adaptation of the Jack Ketchum novel.

On television, Atherton made guest appearances on series including The Twilight Zone, Murder She Wrote, Law and Order, The Equalizer, Desperate Housewives, Boston Legal, Castle, and Monk. He held a recurring role in the NBC drama Life and was cast in the final season of ABC's Lost. In the summer of 2014, he joined the second season of the Syfy series Defiance in the recurring role of Viceroy Mercado. He also provided the voice of Dr. Destiny on Justice League. Television movie credits include Buried Alive (1990), Virus (1995), and Headspace (2005).

Atherton has continued to perform in musical productions in later years. In 2011, he played Honoré Lachailles in a production of Gigi for the Reprise Theatre in Los Angeles. That same year, he performed "I Remember It Well" alongside Millicent Martin at a sold-out event in Palm Springs for Michael Childers's One Night Only, benefiting the Jewish Family Service of the Desert. He returned to the same event in 2013 to perform "Isn't It Romantic?" He also appeared alongside his former Centennial costar Stephanie Zimbalist in the Gregory Peck Reading Series, a project of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. In December 2018, he participated in the Library Foundation's reading of excerpts from David Kipen's Dear Los Angeles: The City in Diaries and Letters, 1542 to 2018.

Atherton has been married to writer Bobbi Goldin since December 8, 1980.