William Devane

William Joseph Devane was born on September 5, 1939, in Albany, New York, the son of Joseph Devane, who served as Franklin D. Roosevelt's chauffeur during Roosevelt's tenure as governor of New York. His father was of Irish descent, while his mother, Kate, had Dutch and German ancestry. Devane attended Philip Schuyler High School in Albany before completing his formal training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in 1962.

Devane launched his professional acting career with the New York Shakespeare Festival, where he performed in fifteen productions. In 1966, he took on the role of Robert F. Kennedy in the off-Broadway spoof MacBird. His Broadway career spanned 1969 to 1970 and included three productions: The Chinese, The Watering Place, and The Freaking Out of Stephanie Blake. In 1971, he starred off-Broadway as Randle McMurphy in the first stage revival of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, appearing alongside Danny DeVito, who played Martini.

Devane built a substantial television profile over the following decades. He earned recognition for portraying President John F. Kennedy in the 1974 television docudrama The Missiles of October, a role that placed him opposite Martin Sheen, who played Robert Kennedy. The following year, he played blacklisted radio personality John Henry Faulk in Fear on Trial, a 1975 Emmy Award-winning television film. He starred as Master Sergeant Milt Warden in the 1979 miniseries remake of From Here to Eternity and later reprised the role in a weekly series that was canceled after one season. From 1983 to 1993, Devane was a central figure on the primetime soap opera Knots Landing, playing the politician-turned-corporate executive Greg Sumner for ten years. He joined the cast of 24 in 2005 as Secretary of Defense James Heller, a role he carried through seasons four to six and later reprised in 24: Live Another Day in 2014, with the character now serving as president. On The West Wing in 2004, he guest-starred as the secretary of state and a potential vice presidential nominee, appearing in scenes with Martin Sheen — reuniting the two actors who had played Kennedy and his brother thirty years earlier in The Missiles of October. In 2012, Devane began a recurring role as Grandpa Edward Grayson on the ABC soap opera Revenge.

His film work includes McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), Lady Liberty (1971), Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976), Marathon Man (1976), Rolling Thunder (1977), Yanks (1979), Testament (1983), Timestalkers (1987), Payback (1999), Hollow Man (2000), and Space Cowboys (2000). He played the President of the United States in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and appeared in a cameo role as a NASA official named Williams in Interstellar (2014). In 2022, he appeared in a four-episode guest arc on the Amazon Prime Video series Bosch: Legacy.

Among his additional television credits, Devane appeared as Al Capone in a 1994 episode of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, held a recurring role on Early Edition from 1996 to 2000, appeared in four episodes of Stargate SG-1 as President Henry Hayes in 2004 and in the direct-to-DVD film Stargate: Continuum, co-starred in the sitcom Crumbs, appeared in What About Brian from 2006 to 2007, and played Dr. Dix in the Jesse Stone mystery films alongside Tom Selleck. He also appeared in a 2010 episode of NCIS and guest-starred in a 2010 episode of Psych alongside Carl Weathers.

Devane married Eugenie McCabe in 1962. The couple had two sons and lived in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles. Eugenie died in 2022. In 1984, Devane filed a two-million-dollar lawsuit against Wayne Newton's Aramus Arabians Ranch following the death of his twelve-year-old horse, which he attributed to negligence.