Producer · Actor · Director

1956-08-19 · United States · Male

60 series in the catalog

Adam Arkin (born August 19, 1956) is an American actor and director. He is best known for playing the role of Aaron Shutt on Chicago Hope. He has been nominated for numerous awards, including a Tony (Best Actor, 1991, I Hate Hamlet) as well as three primetime Emmys, four SAG Awards (Ensemble, Chicago Hope), and a DGA Award (My Louisiana Sky). Between 2000-2002 he played the recurring role of Dr. Stanley Keyworth in The West Wing,

most notably in Season 2, Episode 10, "Noel". In 2002, Arkin won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Children's Special for My Louisiana Sky. He is also one of the three actors to portray Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck on Monk. Between 2007 and 2009, he starred in Life. Beginning in 1990, he had a recurring guest role on Northern Exposure playing the angry, paranoid Adam, for which he received an Emmy nomination. In 2009, he portrayed villain Ethan Zobelle, a white separatist gang leader, in Sons of Anarchy and Principal Ed Gibb in 8 Simple Rules (2003–2005). His brother Matthew is also an actor, as was his father, Alan Arkin.

Early life

Arkin was born in Brooklyn to actor, director and writer Alan Arkin and his first wife Jeremy Yaffe. Arkin joined his parents singing in the children's music group the Baby Sitters, along with Lee Hays and Doris Willens. He graduated from Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, New York. Arkin is Jewish.

Career

In 1975, Arkin guest-starred in an episode of the award-winning television show Happy Days (season 2, episode 35), and an episode of Barney Miller ("Grand Hotel"). In 1977, he starred as Lenny Markowitz, the central character in the series Busting Loose. He has since appeared in numerous television series, including: A Year in the Life (1988); The Twilight Zone (1986); Northern Exposure (CBS, 1990–1995), in which he played the mercurial barefooted chef Adam; and Chicago Hope (CBS, 1994–2000); two Law & Order episodes (as jewelry store owner George Costas in "Self Defense," Season 3 in 1992, and as a district attorney named Charles Graham in "Red Ball," Season 16 in 2005); Picket Fences (Season 2, Episode 13); Frasier (as an obsessive fan of Frasier, for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series); Boston Legal; Baby Bob; Monk; and 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter (2002). In 2007, he starred in the NBC drama Life in the role of Ted Earley. He played a white separatist leader named Ethan Zobelle during the second season of the series Sons of Anarchy. In April 2008, Arkin guest-starred in the web series Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show. In 2011, he appeared in a Season 7 episode of The Closer ("To Serve with Love"), and portrayed mob boss Theo Tonin on Justified as well as an FBI agent in The Chicago Code.

Arkin's film appearances include Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) and Hitch (2005). He also played the part of a divorce lawyer in A Serious Man (2009), directed by Ethan and Joel Coen.

Arkin has also done voice acting. He played a minor role in the radio dramatization of Star Wars as the voice of Fixer. For PBS, he voiced Meriwether Lewis in Ken Burns's The Voyage of the Corps of Discovery (1997). He also provided character voice work for the Emmy-winning series The National Parks: America's Best Idea.

He has performed in Broadway, off-Broadway, and regional theatre productions, including Brooklyn Boy by playwright Donald Margulies in both its South Coast Repertory world premiere and the Broadway production).

In addition, he is known for his directing work, including episodes of Grey's Anatomy, Boston Legal, The Riches, Dirt, Ally McBeal, Sons of Anarchy, The Blacklist, Justified, and Masters of Sex. He won an Emmy for directing the Showtime television film My Louisiana Sky. He also directed three episodes of the 2013 Cold War television drama The Americans, the final episode of the second season (2014) of Masters of Sex, and the final two episodes of the critically acclaimed second season of Fargo (2015), in which he also had a minor role.

He is a co-executive producer of the television series Get Shorty.

Personal life

He has a daughter, Molly, with his first wife, Linda. He was married to Phyllis Anne Lyons from 1999 to 2013, and they had one son together. Phyllis filed for divorce in August 2013. He married Michelle Dunker in 2017.

Adam Arkin at the TCM Movie Database (archived)

Interview at Broadway.com