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Richard Dean Anderson
Richard Dean Anderson at the Air Force Association's 57th Annual Air Force Anniversary Dinner
Born	January 23, 1950 (1950-01-23) (age 58) Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Occupation	Television, film, voice actor

Richard Dean Anderson (born January 23, 1950, in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American television actor. He played the title character in the television series MacGyver and, more recently, Jack O'Neill in Stargate SG-1. He lives in Malibu, California, with his family.

Biography

Early life

Anderson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Stuart Jay Anderson and Jocelyn Rhae Carter, and has Scottish, Swedish, Norwegian and Mohawk Native American ancestry. He grew up in Roseville, Minnesota and attended Ramsey High School, then Ohio University in Athens, Ohio and St. Cloud State University.¹

Career

After college, Anderson participated with friends in a cross-country bike ride from Minnesota to Alaska. The adventure opened his mind to what he wanted to do, which was become an actor. He moved to Los Angeles, where he did many menial jobs such as work as a mime and a stagehand at a marina. He started his acting career appearing on General Hospital as Dr. Jeff Webber from 1976 to 1981. He also starred as Adam in the CBS television series Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (based very loosely on the movie of the same name) from 1982-1983. In the 1983-1984 season, he played a lieutenant, Simon Adams, on the 22-week Dennis Weaver series Emerald Point NAS on CBS. In the story line Adams steals away Celia Warren (Susan Dey), the wife of naval lawyer Jack Warren (Charles Frank).

Anderson came to fame with the hit television series MacGyver which lasted from 1985 to 1992 and was highly successful throughout its entire run, with the lead role of Angus MacGyver.

In 1995 he starred in Legend, a comic series of only twelve episodes about a dime novel writer within the Wild West who against his will has to play the role of his own fictional character. Originally written as a TV movie, when the decision was made to make Legend a series, the original teleplay became the two-hour pilot episode. Although Richard Dean Anderson co-starred with John de Lancie in Legend, two 1990 episodes of MacGyver (Serenity (Season 5, Episode 12) and MacGyver's Women (Season 6, Episode 8) ) featured Wild Wild West storylines with a style foreshadowing the quirky style evidenced within Legend.

From 1997 to 2005, he starred as Colonel/General Jack O'Neill in Stargate SG-1, based on the movie Stargate starring Kurt Russell and James Spader. In season six, he chose to have a reduced role in the series due to his desire to spend more time with his young daughter. His role was continually reduced until he left as a regular cast member at the end of season eight semi-retiring from acting for personal reasons,² preferring instead to make a few guest appearances. He has appeared in two episodes of season nine of SG-1, two episodes of season ten, three episodes of season three of Stargate Atlantis and the second direct-to-DVD film Stargate Continuum.

He was presented with an award at the Air Force Association's 57th Annual Air Force Anniversary Dinner in Washington, D.C. on September 14, 2004 because of his role as star and executive producer of Stargate SG-1, a series which has portrayed the Air Force in a positive light since it first premiered.³ It was presented by the then-Air Force Chief-of-Staff, General John P. Jumper. The last recipient of the award was James Stewart in 1987.^{citation needed} At the same dinner, Anderson was made an honorary Brigadier General.

Richard Dean Anderson and The Simpsons

Anderson has always been a great fan of the television show The Simpsons and in 2005, he was invited to guest star on the show, which he had continually referenced during his time on SG-1. He voices himself in an episode called "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore" in which he is kidnapped by Selma and Patty Bouvier; Anderson's MacGyver character is a longstanding heartthrob for the sisters of Marge Simpson. Dan Castellaneta, the voice actor who portrays Homer Simpson (among other characters), made a guest appearance on Stargate SG-1 ("Citizen Joe") and, in describing his unnatural ability to see the life events of Jack O'Neill, made reference to O'Neill's fondness for The Simpsons.

Other appearances

He also appears in the 1997 PC game Fallout as the voice of Killian Darkwater, who was the clever head of the city made entirely of post-nuclear junk (Junktown).

Anderson briefly reprised his role as Angus MacGyver in 2006 when he appeared in a MasterCard commercial during Super Bowl XL. While the plot follows the "MacGyver Formula", it is somewhat satirical of the series, showing unlikely if not impossible solutions to the obstacles faced by Anderson's character (in one shot, he cuts through a thick rope with a pine-scented air freshener). The official MasterCard website for the commercial refers to it as "the Return of MacGyver".

Private life

Anderson has never married. He has a daughter from a prior relationship with Apryl Prose, named Wylie Quinn Annarose, born August 2, 1998. He has dated Dana Delany, Lara Flynn Boyle, Sela Ward, Teri Hatcher, Deidre Hall, and German ice skater Katarina Witt.

Anderson is an avid ice hockey player and skier. He is so much of a fan of the sports that he has deliberately appeared playing these sports in several of his TV shows, including MacGyver.

Anderson is an advocate of gun control^{citation needed}, a trait he has in common with his role on MacGyverand Stargate SG-1, as his character mostly avoided using firearms during the series. However, in Stargate SG-1, he regularly appears armed with a sidearm or FN P90 Personal Defense Weapon.

Filmography

Starring roles

Guest-starring roles

Producer

Composer

References

External links

• Richard Dean Anderson at the Internet Movie Database
• Richard Dean Anderson at Allmovie