Sam Waterston Biography

MARITAL STATUS
Professions Actor , Producer
Birth name Samuel Atkinson Waterston
Nationality American
Birth November 15, 1940 (Cambridge, Massachusetts – United States)

BIOGRAPHY
After his debut on stage at the age of six in the play Antigone directed by his father, Sam Waterston undertook higher studies at the Sorbonne, at the American Actors Workshop in Paris where he studied with John Berry , then at the Yale School of Drama.

After an appearance in the series Dr. Kildare in 1961, Sam Waterston stood out on Broadway in 1962 in the play Oh dad, poor dad, mama’s hung you in the closet and I’m feelin’ so bad . The actor will therefore remain very attached to the boards which he will find regularly. In the cinema, we noticed him for the first time in Savages by James Ivory in 1972, but it was two years later, alongside Robert Redford and Mia Farrow , that the public really discovered him in The Great Gatsby by Jack Clayton , which then earned him a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor. In 1978, Sam Waterston collaborated for the first time with Woody Allen in Interiors , before reuniting with the filmmaker for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), September (1987) and Crimes and Delits (1989).

In 1980, he played one of the leading roles in La Porte du paradis by Michael Cimino , before moving on to one of his most striking interpretations: that of the journalist Sidney Schanberg in La Torchiure by Roland Joffé , which allowed him to to be nominated for an Oscar for best actor. The 90s marked a turning point in the career of the actor, who divided his time between cinema ( Serial Mother , by John Waters , in 1994 or the action film Haute Treason in 1997) and television, with the series of Dick Wolf New York District , in which he played, between 1994 and 2010, the first deputy prosecutor Jack McCoy.

Taken by this television commitment, Sam Waterston became more discreet on the big screen at the dawn of the year 2000. He still reunited with James Ivory in 2003 for the film Divorce , in which he notably starred opposite Kate Hudson . But it is now clearly on the small screen that the actor finds the most interesting opportunities. In 2012, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin called on him to play Charlie Skinner, the head of the news branch of the ACN channel, in his new creation,The Newsroom .

In 2015, just a few months after the series ended, viewers found Sam Waterston in a regular role, opposite Jane Fonda and Martin Sheen , in the Netflix comedy Grace & Frankie . He lends his features to Sol, who one day announces to his wife Frankie, played by Lily Tomlin , that he is leaving her to marry a man.