With his imposing frame and commanding presence, this mustachioed TV actor started out playing villains but shot to fame as a good guy on the lighthearted '80s action series
Simon & Simon. Boasting a Southern amiability and a deadpan drawl, he charmed audiences and
Designing Women star Delta Burke, who became his third wife after they guest-starred on their respective series. His next show, the family sitcom
Major Dad, was a moderate success and firmly established him as a stern yet lovable patriarch, a role he continued to embody on his subsequent show,
Promised Land. McRaney also popped up in a slew of TV-movies, often opposite his wife, and even tried his hand at directing, helming multiple episodes of his first two hit series. In the '90s and '00s, he suffered through a few failed shows but always found work as a guest star on long-running series, rarely straying from his effective stereotype, except for his deliciously malicious turn on
Deadwood.
Gerald McRaney Fast Facts:
- Is of Scottish and Choctaw Indian ancestry.
- Joined a junior-high drama club after a knee injury prevented him from playing football.
- Worked on offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico after leaving college.
- Was the last gunfighter to face Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke.
- Met future wife Delta Burke at a 1987 luncheon and soon after landed a guest appearance as her ex-husband on Designing Women. The two subsequently appeared together in a number of projects including the TV-movies Where the Hell's That Gold?!!? (1988), Simon & Simon: In Trouble Again (1995), Going for Broke (2003, playing husband and wife), and Love and Curses... And All That Jazz (1991, which he also directed).
- Gerald McRaney Relationships:
- Angus McRaney - Son
- Ann McRaney - Sister
- Beverly Root - Ex-wife
- Clyde McRaney - Father
- Edna McRaney - Mother
- Jessica McRaney - Daughter
- Kate McRaney - Daughter
- Patricia Rae Moran - Ex-wife
- Delta Burke - Wife
- Buddy McRaney - Brother
- College:
- University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS
