John Cullum

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BIRTHDAY

March 02, 1930

Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

RECENT CREDITS

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (TV) Oct. 14, 2009

Mad Men (TV) Oct. 4, 2007

The Night Listener (FILM) Aug. 4, 2006

The Notorious Bettie Page (FILM) Apr. 14, 2006

Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise an... (TV) Jan. 18, 2005

View all John Cullum Credits

BIOGRAPHY

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This handsome, weathered, stage-trained actor garnered national attention with his portrayal of trapper/restaurateur Holling Vincoeur on "Northern Exposure" (CBS, 1990-95). Tennessee native John Cullum began his acting career when he was cast by Joseph Papp in several small roles in a 1957 New York production of "Julius Caesar". Three years later, he worked extensively with Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival, appearing in such plays as "Henry V" and "The Taming of the Shrew". His work on Broadway began in the original production of "Camelot" (1960), playing the role of Sir Dinadan and understudying star Richard Burton. He later played Laertes to Burton's Hamlet in John Gielgud's 1964 modern-dress production that was also filmed and nearly twenty years later supported Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in a revival of Noel Coward's "Private Lives" (1983). By that time, Cullum had established himself as a versatile stage actor, moving comfortably between musicals and straight plays. He received his first Tony Award nomination as the psychiatrist treating Barbara Harris in the Lerner and Lane musical "One A Clear Day You Can See Forever" (1965). In 1966, Cullum succeeded Richard Kiley as the "Man of La Mancha" and portrayed Declaration of Independence signer Edward Rutledge (of South Carolina) in the award-winning musical "1776" (a role he reprised in the 1972 feature adaptation). He received his first Tony and became an uncontested Broadway star playing the father trying to keep his sons out of the Civil War in "Shenandoah" (1975) and garnered a second medallion as the egotistical film director Oscar Jaffe in "On the Twentieth Century" (1978). He played the manipulated playwright Sidney Bruhl in "Deathtrap" (1980) and earned critical notice for his one-man show about the American artist "Whistler" (1981). In the 90s, he returned to musicals in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Aspects of Love" (1990) and as Cap'n Andy in "Show Boat" (1996) and then dazzled audiences and reviewers as Joe Keeler in the revival of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" (1997).

Like many leading stage actors, Cullum found limited success in TV and features. He made his film debut as one of Jean Simmons' brothers in "All the Way Home" (1963) and also had a small role as a missionary in "Hawaii" (1966). Cullum relied on his Tennessee roots to play a district attorney in "MARIE: A True Story" (1985) and wrote himself a strong leading role as an eccentric in 1997's "The Secret Life of Algernon", adapted from the Russell H Grennan novel.

Cullum's small screen credits include a stint on the NBC soap opera "The Doctors", a supporting role on "The Day After" (ABC, 1983), the highly publicized TV drama of the aftermath of nuclear war, and the short-lived series "Buck James" (ABC, 1987-88), in support of Dennis Weaver. He also made his TV directorial debut with an episode of NBC's "Quantum Leap" in 1990.

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