Ken Kercheval
Encyclopedia
Ken Kercheval is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

, best known for his role as Cliff Barnes
Cliff Barnes
Clifford "Cliff" Barnes, played by Ken Kercheval, was a character on the popular American television series Dallas. The Barnes family were competitors and sometimes enemies of the Ewing family. Cliff was the son of Willard "Digger" Barnes and Rebecca Barnes Wentworth. J.R. Ewing was Cliff's...

 on the television series Dallas
Dallas (TV series)
Dallas is an American serial drama/prime time soap opera that revolves around the Ewings, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching industries. Throughout the series, Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil baron J. R. Ewing...

.

Kercheval and Larry Hagman
Larry Hagman
Larry Martin Hagman is an American film and television actor, producer and director known for playing J.R. Ewing in the 1980s primetime television soap opera Dallas and Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson in the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early life and career:Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas...

 were the only cast members to stay with the series throughout its entire run, although Kercheval's character was only a recurring character during the first two seasons. He became a regular cast member in the 1979-1980 season. Kercheval reprised the role of Cliff Barnes in the 1996 Dallas reunion, J. R. Returns, and he appeared in the 2004 CBS reunion special. He will reprise the role again in episodes 3, 4, and 10 of the Dallas (2012 TV series).

Kercheval was born and raised in Clinton, Indiana
Clinton, Indiana
Clinton is a city in Vermillion County, Indiana, United States. The population was 4,893 at the 2010 census. The city was established in 1829 and is named after DeWitt Clinton, who served as governor of New York from 1817 to 1823. Many of Clinton's original settlers were immigrants working in coal...

, to Marine "Doc" Kercheval, a local physician, and the former Christine Rieber. He trained under Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner
Sanford Meisner , also known as Sandy, was an American actor and acting teacher who developed a form of Method acting that is now known as the Meisner technique....

 at The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.

Kercheval made his Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 debut in the 1962 play Something About a Soldier
Something About a Soldier
Something About a Soldier, subtitled "A Comedy-drama in Three Acts", was a play written by Emmy-winning writer Ernest Kinoy, which had its Broadway premiere at the Ambassador Theatre in New York on January 4, 1962...

. Additional theatre credits include The Apple Tree
The Apple Tree
The Apple Tree is a series of three musical playlets with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and a book by Bock and Harnick with contributions from Jerome Coopersmith...

, Cabaret
Cabaret (musical)
Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....

, and Here's Where I Belong
Here's Where I Belong
Here's Where I Belong is a musical with a book by Alex Gordon and Terrence McNally, lyrics by Alfred Uhry, and music by Robert Waldman.Based on John Steinbeck's classic novel East of Eden, the allegorical tale centers on the Trasks and the Hamiltons, two families drawn to the rich farmlands of...

. In 1966, he appeared as the title character in the original Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof
Fiddler on the Roof
Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in Tsarist Russia in 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters by Sholem Aleichem...

, co-starring with Herschel Bernardi
Herschel Bernardi
Herschel Bernardi was an American film, Broadway, and television actor....

, Maria Karnilova
Maria Karnilova
Maria Karnilova was an American actress.Born as Maria Kasnilovich in Hartford, Connecticut, Maria Karnilova made her Broadway debut in Call Me Mister in 1946...

, Julia Migenes
Julia Migenes
Julia Migenes is an American mezzo-soprano working primarily in musical theatre repertoire. She was born on the Lower East Side of New York to a family of Greek and Irish-Puerto Rican descent...

, Leonard Frey
Leonard Frey
- Biography :Frey was born in Brooklyn, New York. After college, where he studied art with designs on being a painter, he studied acting at New York City's prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse under famed acting coach Sanford Meisner, and pursued a career in theater instead...

 and Pia Zadora
Pia Zadora
Pia Zadora is an American actress and singer. After working as a child actress on Broadway, in regional theater, and in the film Santa Claus Conquers the Martians , she came to national attention in 1981 when, following her starring role in the highly criticized Butterfly, she won a Golden Globe...

.

He got his start on television in 1966, playing the part of Dr. Nick Hunter on Search for Tomorrow
Search for Tomorrow
Search for Tomorrow is an American soap opera which premiered on September 3, 1951 on CBS. The show was moved from CBS to NBC on March 29, 1982. It continued on NBC until the final episode aired on December 26, 1986, a run of thirty-five years. At the time of its final broadcast it was the...

. His film credits include The Seven-Ups
The Seven-Ups
The Seven-Ups is a 1973 American film released by 20th Century Fox. It stars Roy Scheider as a renegade policeman who is the leader of The Seven-Ups, a police team who uses dirty, unorthodox tactics to snare their quarry on charges leading to prison sentences of seven years or more upon...

with Roy Scheider
Roy Scheider
Roy Richard Scheider was an American actor. He was best known for his leading role as police chief Martin C...

 and Tony LoBianco and F.I.S.T.
F.I.S.T.
F.I.S.T. is a 1978 movie directed by Norman Jewison and starring Sylvester Stallone. In this film, Stallone plays a Cleveland warehouse worker named Johnny Kovak who becomes involved in the labor union leadership of the fictional "Federation of Inter State Truckers", and finds that he must...

with Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone
Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone , commonly known as Sylvester Stallone, and nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, film director and occasional painter. Stallone is known for his machismo and Hollywood action roles. Two of the notable characters he has portrayed...

.

In 1991, he appeared in the reunion movie, I Still Dream of Jeannie
I Still Dream of Jeannie
I Still Dream of Jeannie is a 1991 made-for-television reunion film based on the 1965-70 series I Dream of Jeannie which aired on NBC on October 20, 1991 and produced by Columbia Pictures Television....

, playing Mr. Simpson, a guidance counselor at Anthony Nelson, Jr's (Christopher Bolton) high school and was the temporary master for Anthony's mother, Jeannie (Barbara Eden
Barbara Eden
Barbara Eden is an American film and television actress and singer who is best known for her starring role in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early years:...

). This was because Larry Hagman, who played Tony Nelson, was not available to reprise his role, as he had not yet finished his run on Dallas. He also appeared as a ballroom dance teacher in the independent film, California Casanova.

In 2006, Kercheval appeared in a musical at Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...

's Mayflower Theatre and Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...

's Theatre Royal in the performance of White Christmas
White Christmas
A white Christmas refers to the presence of snow on Christmas Day. This phenomenon is most common in the northern countries of the Northern Hemisphere...

playing The General. In 2007, he reprised his role at the Edinburgh Playhouse
Edinburgh Playhouse
The Edinburgh Playhouse is a former cinema in Edinburgh, Scotland which now hosts touring musicals and music concerts. Its capacity is 3,059, making it the UK's largest working theatre in terms of audience capacity....

 and the Wales Millennium Centre
Wales Millennium Centre
Wales Millennium Centre is an arts centre located in the Cardiff Bay area of Cardiff, Wales. The site covers a total area of . Phase 1 of the building was opened during the weekend of the 26–28 November 2004 and phase 2 opened on 22 January 2009 with an inaugural concert...

 in Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...

. He reprised his role in Sunderland in 2010.

Kercheval recently finished filming a small role in the independent film Corrado, starring Tom Sizemore
Tom Sizemore
Thomas Edward "Tom" Sizemore, Jr. is an American film and television actor and producer. He is known for his roles in films such as Saving Private Ryan, Strange Days, Pearl Harbor, Heat and Black Hawk Down....

.

Personal life

Ken Kercheval is a lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...

 survivor.

Kercheval has seven children from three marriages, all of which have ended in divorce. He presently has six grandchildren.

External links

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