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Ken Howard,
born on March 28, 1944 in El Centro, California, is a Tony-winning actor who is best known for his role in the television show
"The White Shadow" as basketball coach and former Chicago Bulls player, Ken Reeves.
Howard
left the Yale School of Drama in 1967 to take a bit part in the
Broadway musical "Promises, Promises". By 1969, he had won
a Theatre World Award for his work as Thomas Jefferson in the
acclaimed musical "1776", a role he reprised in the 1972
film version. Howard won a 1970 Tony Award for his performance in
the thriller "Child's Play" and played Jerry Ryan opposite
Michele Lee's Gittel Mosca in "Seesaw" in 1973.
By
then, Hollywood had caught up to him. Howard made his screen debut
as Arthur, the sort-of-epileptic member of a trio of friends
including Liza Minnelli and Robert Moore in "Tell Me That You
Love Me, Junie Moon" (1970). Although he followed with
"Such Good Friends" (1971), he never really became an
established presence in features. In 1973, he went to Hollywood to
play the Spencer Tracy role opposite Blythe Danner in the Katherine
Hepburn part in a sitcom version of "Adam's Rib". The show
flopped and Howard was back on stage soon after, but he had another
go as an action hero in "Manhunter" (1974-75).
Three
years later, he finally clicked in a series portraying Ken Reeves,
an injured pro basketball player who becomes the high school coach
of a racially mixed team, in "The White Shadow". The
series ran on CBS for two and a half seasons (1978-81) and while
never a mega-hit, it was said to be a personal favorite of CBS chair
William S Paley. When it was canceled, Howard appeared in the
miniseries, "Rage of Angels" (1983) and "The Thorn
Birds" (1983) before trying series again, this time with the
short-lived sitcom, "It's Not Easy" (1983), about the
extended families of divorce. In 1985-86, Howard was on both ABC
series "Dynasty" and "The Colbys" for one season
as Garrett Boydston. By 1986, he was hosting the syndicated beauty
pageant series "Dream Girl USA."
Howard
subsequently became far more selective in his work appearing in
TV-movies like "Damien: The Leper Priest" (1980) as well
as "Murder in New Hampshire: The Pamela Smart Story"
(1991). In the former he played the title role, while in the latter
he was Helen Hunt's father-in-law, correctly convinced she was
behind the murder of his son. Howard also hosted the reality series
"What Happened?" (1992-1993).
After
little feature film work in the 80s, Howard returned to the big
screen as a character player in the 90s. He co-wrote and also
co-produced the independent "Challenge the Wind" (1990)
and was one of a host of "stars" in support of Sylvester
Stallone in the bomb "Oscar" (1991). More recently, he was
one of the nefarious blackmailers of Sandra Bullock in "The
Net" (1995).
He also played the retired policeman/bar
owner father of Jill Hennesey's title character in the NBC series,
"Crossing Jordan" (2001-2003).
He has been married to Linda Fetters, a stuntwoman, since 1992.
Prior to that he was married to Margo Coleman, known
professionally as Margo Howard, the daughter of the late Ann
Landers, from 1977 to 1991, and before that to TV soap opera
actress, Louise Sorel, from 1973 to 1976, when they divorced.
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complete data from Ken
Howard filmography is included
in the biggest film data-base on the internet, site Internet
Movie Database, and we have inter-linked the IMDb site with
the individual pages of each Dynasty actor. |
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