Stephen Macht
Encyclopedia
Stephen Robert Macht is an American
television and film actor.
. He was raised in Brooklyn Heights, NY
, until his father's death. At age nine, he moved with his mother and older brother to live with his maternal grandfather, a haberdasher, in Mystic, CT. After graduating from Dartmouth College
in 1963 (where he roomed with future actor Michael Moriarty
), Macht attended Tufts University
, receiving an M.A. in Drama in 1967. He later enrolled at Indiana University
and obtained a Ph.D. in Dramatic Literature and Theatre History in 1970. Macht studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
and wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the history of acting training there. He has also trained with Milton Katselas
at the Beverly Hills Playhouse
. While teaching at Queens College he received approval by his department chair to appear in plays in New York in lieu of publishing scholarly articles as part of the tenure track.
talent scout while starring at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada in 1975, Macht was signed to a contract and by the mid 1970s had left teaching and was making frequent appearances in TV episodes and movies.
Dark, with a solid build, Macht was often cast as Jews, Italians and Native Americans; such as in Raid on Entebbe
(NBC, 1977), where he portrayed Yonni Netanyahu, the Israeli officer killed in the rescue of hostages in Uganda
. In 1978 Macht had a big break as the lead in The Immigrants
a syndicated miniseries about the rise of the son of Italian immigrants in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. The following year he portrayed a Hopi
in Nightwing
.
The success of the TV-movie American Dream (ABC, 1981) led to a critically acclaimed short-lived series which cast Macht in the role of a family man who chucks the suburban life to set up home in the inner city of Chicago. The following season, he landed the role of the brother of Karen MacKenzie (Michele Lee
) on Knots Landing
(CBS, 1982–83). The actor, however, found more challenging roles in TV longforms. Notable roles included playing Nancy McKeon
's father in Strange Voices
(NBC, 1987). He was Benedict Arnold
in the 1984 CBS miniseries George Washington
and one of the survivors of Flight 90: Disaster on the Potomac (NBC, 1984). Macht spent three seasons (1985–88) in the recurring role of David Keeler, love interest to Det. Chris Cagney (Sharon Gless
), on Cagney & Lacey
(CBS). He was also the third-billed star of The Last Winter
. During his run on the show, he moved behind the cameras to make his directorial debut.
In 1993, Macht played Krim Aldos in an early Season 2 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
, "The Siege". This was after he was seriously considered for both the roles of Captain Picard
and Commander Riker
during the casting of Star Trek: The Next Generation
.
More recent credits have included playing an Austrian Jew who must be baptized along with his wife and daughter in order to escape the Nazis in A Friendship in Vienna (The Disney Channel, 1988); a doctor helping Jane Seymour
in the syndicated miniseries Sidney Sheldon's Memories of Midnight (1991); and cult member Joan Van Ark
's suffering husband in Moment of Truth: A Mother's Deception (NBC, 1994). In 1996 he did a six-month stint on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live
as Elliot Durban, a psychiatrist and gambling addict blackmailed into hypnotising Victoria Lord Buchanan (Erika Slezak
). As of August 24, 2007 he is playing Trevor Lansing, attorney of organized crime boss Anthony Zacchara and father of attorney Ric Lansing
, in the soap opera
General Hospital
for which Soap Opera Digest
nominated him Best Villain of 2007.
Macht's work in feature films has been more sporadic, beginning with a turn as one of The Choirboys
(1977). He also had roles in The Mountain Men
(1980), The Monster Squad
(1987), Stephen King's Graveyard Shift
(1990), and Watchers Reborn
(1998). Macht has also played Dr. Harris in three entries in the Trancers
series.
and musician Jesse Macht. Macht has studied to be a rabbi
. Macht's family is Jewish.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
television and film actor.
Early life
Macht was born in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. He was raised in Brooklyn Heights, NY
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
Brooklyn Heights is a culturally diverse neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Originally referred to as 'Brooklyn Village', it has been a prominent area of Brooklyn since 1834. As of 2000, Brooklyn Heights sustained a population of 22,594 people. The neighborhood is part of...
, until his father's death. At age nine, he moved with his mother and older brother to live with his maternal grandfather, a haberdasher, in Mystic, CT. After graduating from Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
in 1963 (where he roomed with future actor Michael Moriarty
Michael Moriarty
Michael Moriarty is an American-Canadian actor of stage and screen, and a jazz musician. He played Benjamin Stone for four seasons on the TV series Law & Order.-Early life:...
), Macht attended Tufts University
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...
, receiving an M.A. in Drama in 1967. He later enrolled at Indiana University
Indiana University
Indiana University is a multi-campus public university system in the state of Indiana, United States. Indiana University has a combined student body of more than 100,000 students, including approximately 42,000 students enrolled at the Indiana University Bloomington campus and approximately 37,000...
and obtained a Ph.D. in Dramatic Literature and Theatre History in 1970. Macht studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art is a leading British drama school in west London. LAMDA's president is Timothy West and its new principal is Joanna Read, who recently succeeded Peter James...
and wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the history of acting training there. He has also trained with Milton Katselas
Milton Katselas
Milton Katselas was an American film director and famous Hollywood coach for The Beverly Hills Playhouse...
at the Beverly Hills Playhouse
Beverly Hills Playhouse
The Beverly Hills Playhouse is one of the oldest acting schools and theatres in Los Angeles. Located at 254 South Robertson Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California, United States.-The early years:...
. While teaching at Queens College he received approval by his department chair to appear in plays in New York in lieu of publishing scholarly articles as part of the tenure track.
Career
Spotted by a Universal StudiosUniversal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
talent scout while starring at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada in 1975, Macht was signed to a contract and by the mid 1970s had left teaching and was making frequent appearances in TV episodes and movies.
Dark, with a solid build, Macht was often cast as Jews, Italians and Native Americans; such as in Raid on Entebbe
Raid on Entebbe (film)
Raid on Entebbe is a 1977 TV movie directed by Irvin Kershner. It is based on an actual event: Operation Entebbe and the freeing of hostages at Entebbe Airport in Entebbe, Uganda on July 4, 1976. It was the last movie to be released featuring Academy Award-winning actor Peter Finch who died just...
(NBC, 1977), where he portrayed Yonni Netanyahu, the Israeli officer killed in the rescue of hostages in Uganda
Operation Entebbe
Operation Entebbe was a counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission carried out by the Special Forces of the Israel Defense Forces at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on 4 July 1976. A week earlier, on 27 June, an Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked by Palestinian and German terrorists and...
. In 1978 Macht had a big break as the lead in The Immigrants
The Immigrants
HaOlim was a short-lived one-man political faction in Israel.-Background:The faction was formed when Yigal Yasinov broke away from Shinui on 1 February 2006, towards the end of the 16th Knesset...
a syndicated miniseries about the rise of the son of Italian immigrants in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. The following year he portrayed a Hopi
Hopi
The Hopi are a federally recognized tribe of indigenous Native American people, who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The Hopi area according to the 2000 census has a population of 6,946 people. Their Hopi language is one of the 30 of the Uto-Aztecan language...
in Nightwing
Nightwing (film)
Nightwing is a 1979 American horror film directed by Arthur Hiller. The screenplay by Martin Cruz Smith, Steve Shagan, and Bud Shrake is based on the 1977 novel of the same title by Smith...
.
The success of the TV-movie American Dream (ABC, 1981) led to a critically acclaimed short-lived series which cast Macht in the role of a family man who chucks the suburban life to set up home in the inner city of Chicago. The following season, he landed the role of the brother of Karen MacKenzie (Michele Lee
Michele Lee
Michele Lee is an American singer, dancer, actress, producer, director and frequent game show panelist of the 1970s. She is best-known for her role as Karen Cooper Fairgate MacKenzie on the 1980s prime-time soap opera, Knots Landing...
) on Knots Landing
Knots Landing
Knots Landing is an American primetime television soap opera that aired from December 27, 1979 to May 13, 1993 on CBS. Set in a fictitious coastal suburb of Los Angeles in California, the show centered on the lives of four married couples living in a cul-de-sac, Seaview Circle...
(CBS, 1982–83). The actor, however, found more challenging roles in TV longforms. Notable roles included playing Nancy McKeon
Nancy McKeon
Nancy Justine McKeon is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Jo Polniaczek on the NBC sitcom The Facts of Life.-Early life & career:...
's father in Strange Voices
Strange Voices
Strange Voices is a 1987 television film about schizophrenia directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman. The film, based on actual events, was criticized as inferior to other made-for-television movies about the disorder, including Promise...
(NBC, 1987). He was Benedict Arnold
Benedict Arnold
Benedict Arnold V was a general during the American Revolutionary War. He began the war in the Continental Army but later defected to the British Army. While a general on the American side, he obtained command of the fort at West Point, New York, and plotted to surrender it to the British forces...
in the 1984 CBS miniseries George Washington
George Washington (TV miniseries)
George Washington is a 1984 television miniseries directed by Buzz Kulik. The miniseries, released in three parts, chronicles the life of George Washington, the 1st President of the United States, from age 11 to age 51. George Washington is based on the biography by James Thomas Flexner.The...
and one of the survivors of Flight 90: Disaster on the Potomac (NBC, 1984). Macht spent three seasons (1985–88) in the recurring role of David Keeler, love interest to Det. Chris Cagney (Sharon Gless
Sharon Gless
Sharon Marguerite Gless is an American character actress of stage, film and television, who is best known for her roles as Maggie Philbin on Switch , as Sgt. Christine Cagney in the police procedural drama series Cagney & Lacey and as Debbie Novotny in the Showtime cable television series Queer...
), on Cagney & Lacey
Cagney & Lacey
Cagney & Lacey is an American television series that originally aired on the CBS television network for seven seasons from October 8, 1981 to May 16, 1988...
(CBS). He was also the third-billed star of The Last Winter
The Last Winter (1984 film)
The Last Winter is a 1984 drama film directed by Riki Shelach Nissimoff and produced by Avi Lerner. The film was a joint American-Israeli venture which tells the story of two women seeking leads to their missing husbands after the end of the Yom Kippur War...
. During his run on the show, he moved behind the cameras to make his directorial debut.
In 1993, Macht played Krim Aldos in an early Season 2 episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe...
, "The Siege". This was after he was seriously considered for both the roles of Captain Picard
Jean-Luc Picard
Captain Jean-Luc Picard is a Star Trek character portrayed by Patrick Stewart. He appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the feature films Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek Nemesis...
and Commander Riker
William Riker
William Thomas Riker, played by Jonathan Frakes, is a fictional character in the Star Trek universe primarily appearing as a main character in Star Trek: The Next Generation...
during the casting of Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
.
More recent credits have included playing an Austrian Jew who must be baptized along with his wife and daughter in order to escape the Nazis in A Friendship in Vienna (The Disney Channel, 1988); a doctor helping Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour (actress)
Jane Seymour, OBE is an English actress best known for her performances in the James Bond film Live and Let Die , East of Eden , Onassis: The Richest Man in the World , and the American television series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman...
in the syndicated miniseries Sidney Sheldon's Memories of Midnight (1991); and cult member Joan Van Ark
Joan Van Ark
Joan Van Ark is an American actress, most notable for her role as Valene Ewing, which she originated on the CBS series Dallas and continued for thirteen seasons on its spin-off, Knots Landing...
's suffering husband in Moment of Truth: A Mother's Deception (NBC, 1994). In 1996 he did a six-month stint on the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live
One Life to Live
One Life to Live is an American soap opera which debuted on July 15, 1968 and has been broadcast on the ABC television network. Created by Agnes Nixon, the series was the first daytime drama to primarily feature racially and socioeconomically diverse characters and consistently emphasize social...
as Elliot Durban, a psychiatrist and gambling addict blackmailed into hypnotising Victoria Lord Buchanan (Erika Slezak
Erika Slezak
Erika Alma Hermina Slezak is an American actress, best known for her role as Victoria Lord on the American daytime soap opera One Life to Live...
). As of August 24, 2007 he is playing Trevor Lansing, attorney of organized crime boss Anthony Zacchara and father of attorney Ric Lansing
Ric Lansing
Richard "Ric" Lansing was a fictional character on the ABC soap opera, General Hospital. The character was played by soap opera veteran Rick Hearst from 2002 to 2009.- Casting and background :...
, in the soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
General Hospital
General Hospital
General Hospital is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running American soap opera currently in production and the third longest running drama in television in American history after Guiding Light and As the World Turns....
for which Soap Opera Digest
Soap Opera Digest
Soap Opera Digest is a weekly magazine covering American daytime soap operas. It features onscreen and offscreen news about the series, interviews with and articles about performers, storyline summaries and analysis, and related promotional information...
nominated him Best Villain of 2007.
Macht's work in feature films has been more sporadic, beginning with a turn as one of The Choirboys
The Choirboys (film)
The Choirboys is a 1977 American comedy-drama film directed by Robert Aldrich, written by Christopher Knopf and Joseph Wambaugh based on Wambaugh's novel. It features an ensemble cast including Randy Quaid and James Woods...
(1977). He also had roles in The Mountain Men
The Mountain Men
The Mountain Men is a 1980 Adventure/Western film starring Charlton Heston and Brian Keith.-Plot:Charlton Heston stars as an argumentative, curmudgeonly mountain man by the name of Bill Tyler. His co-star, Brian Keith, in the role of Henry Frapp, is Bill's good friend and fellow trapper...
(1980), The Monster Squad
The Monster Squad
The Monster Squad is a comedy/horror film written by Shane Black and Fred Dekker and directed by Fred Dekker . It was released by Tri-Star Pictures on August 14, 1987. The film features the classic monsters , led by Count Dracula...
(1987), Stephen King's Graveyard Shift
Graveyard Shift
"Graveyard Shift" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the October 1970 issue of Cavalier magazine, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift...
(1990), and Watchers Reborn
Watchers Reborn
Watchers Reborn is the 1998 sequel to the Canadian horror film Watchers. Starring Star Wars veteran Mark Hamill, the film is loosely based on the novel Watchers by Dean Koontz.-Plot:...
(1998). Macht has also played Dr. Harris in three entries in the Trancers
Trancers
Trancers is a 1985 science fiction film. It was directed by Charles Band and stars Tim Thomerson and Helen Hunt. It is the first film in a series of six: Trancers , and the direct-to-video releases; Trancers II , Trancers III , Trancers 4: Jack of Swords , Trancers 5: Sudden Deth and Trancers 6...
series.
Personal life
Macht has been married to archivist/museum curator Suzanne Victoria Pulier since 1964. He has four children: Julie, Ari Serbin, actor Gabriel MachtGabriel Macht
Gabriel S. Macht is an American actor. Macht is known for playing The Spirit in the film of the same name, and lately for his role as Harvey Specter on the USA Network series Suits.-Personal life:...
and musician Jesse Macht. Macht has studied to be a rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
. Macht's family is Jewish.