Dakin Matthews

Dakin Matthews
Born	Melvin Richard Matthews (1940-11-07) November 7, 1940 Oakland, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, director, scholar
Years active	1965–present

Dakin Matthews (born November 7, 1940) is an American actor with a long history of work in film, television and theater. He is also a playwright, director, and theatrical scholar.

Life and career

Melvin Richard Matthews was born in Oakland, California. He initially aspired to become a Roman Catholic priest, studying in San Francisco and then at Gregorian University in Rome in the 1960s. However, his growing interest in drama led him to the Juilliard School, where he taught, among others, Kevin Kline and Patti LuPone. He acted and taught at the American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) in San Francisco where Annette Bening was one of his students. He also attended graduate school at NYU and is an Emeritus Professor of English at California State University, East Bay in Hayward, California.

He began his stage career in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area, appearing in both the Marin and California Shakespeare Festivals, eventually becoming a member of the acting ensemble of the American Conservatory Theatre. In the late 1980s, settling permanently in Los Angeles, Matthews began guest-starring in television series and appearing in films. He starred in series such as Down Home, Soul Man and, most successfully, The Jeff Foxworthy Show. He also has made many guest appearances on television, including Remington Steele, Dallas, Murder She Wrote, L.A. Law, Just Shoot Me!, Star Trek: Voyager, The West Wing, Gilmore Girls (as Headmaster Charleston), Ally McBeal, The Practice, Charmed, The King of Queens (as Doug Heffernan (Kevin James)'s father Joe), NYPD Blue, Desperate Housewives (appearing in every Season except 5 as Reverend Sykes), House M.D., Two and a Half Men and Carnivàle.

Matthews has appeared in more than 25 feature films, including Nuts, Like Father Like Son, Clean and Sober, Thirteen Days, Child's Play 3, Funny Farm, True Grit (as Colonel Stonehilll), Steven Spielberg's' Lincoln, and Zero Chrisma. He also appeared in a number of television movie]]s, including And the Band Played On, Baby M, and White Mile. As a stage actor, he is known for his many Shakespearean roles, especially King Lear, Bottom, and Falstaff, and most recently for his portrayals of C. S. Lewis in South Coast Repertory's Shadowlands, as "Warwick" in Shakespeare's Henry IV at the Lincoln Center Theater, as "Undershaft" in Major Barbara and "Tarleton" in Misalliance for South Coast Repertory, as "The Fixer" in Water and Power for the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, as "Leonato" in Shakespeare Center L.A.'s production of Much Ado About Nothing with Helen Hunt, as "Cardinal Wolsey" in A Man For All Seasons with Frank Langella at the Roundabout, and as "Senator Carlin" in Gore Vidal's The Best Man on Broadway.

In 2010, Matthews joined the cast of the ABC soap opera General Hospital as Judge Peter Carroll, the judge in Sonny Corinthos' trial. He is also a playwright, director, and theater scholar who has published books and articles on Shakespeare and translations of 17th-century Spanish theater. He has been a dramaturg on numerous theatrical productions, including the 2005 Broadway revival of Julius Caesar starring Denzel Washington and the 2003 revival of Henry IV, winning a Drama Desk Award Special Award for his adaptation of the latter.

Matthews was also Artistic Director of the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival, the California Actors Theatre, The Antaeus Company (which he co-founded in 1991), and the Andak Stage Company; he is an Associate Artist of the Old Globe Theatre; and a founding member of the John Houseman's The Acting Company and Sam Mendes' Bridge Project. Most recently, Matthews appeared in the 2009 world tour of The Bridge Project as "Pishchick" in The Cherry Orchard and "Antigonus" in The Winter's Tale; in the 2011 summer season of The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park, performing as "the Provost" in Measure for Measure and "Lafew" in All's Well That Ends Well., and as "Sir Humphrey" in the American premiere of Yes Prime Minister at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. He was nominated for an Ovation Award for Book and Lyrics of an original musical entitled Liberty Inn, which he co-wrote with B. T. Ryback. In 2011, his verse translation of The Capulets & The Montagues played at the Andak Stage Company and the International Siglo de Oro Festival, winning the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Adaptation. Matthews appeared as Santa Claus in The Big Bang Theory Season 6 episode, "The Santa Simulation". He is currently dramaturging the Lincoln Center production of Macbeth, directed by Jack O'Brien and starring Ethan Hawke, and rehearsing Robert Schenkkan's award-winning L.B.J. play All The Way, starring Bryan Cranston, at A.R.T. in Cambridge.

Theater

• Rocky the Musical - Mickey Goldmill (2014)

External links

• Dakin Matthews at the Internet Movie Database