Samuel Waterston ~ An Actor of Extreme Character

Samuel Atkinson Waterston (born November 15, 1940) is an American actor, producer, and director. Waterston is known for his work in theater, television and film. Waterston, having studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and the American Actors Workshop, started his career in theater on the New York stage, appearing in multiple revivals of Shakespeare.

Waterston received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his performance in The Killing Fields (1984). He also received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in the Broadway revival of Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1994). Waterston is known for his role as Jack McCoy in the popular long running criminal investigation series Law & Order for which he received 3 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and a Golden Globe Award nomination. He also received 11 Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Law & Order, winning in 1999 for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series. He also received 3 Primetime Emmy Award nominations for I’ll Fly Away as well as two Golden Globe Award nominations for the series, winning in 1994.

On January 7, 2010, Waterston received the 2,397th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2012, he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. He has been nominated for multiple Golden Globe AwardsScreen Actors Guild AwardsBritish Academy Film Awards, and Emmy Awards, having starred in over 80 film and television productions during his 50-year careerAllMovie historian Hal Erickson characterized Waterston as having “cultivated a loyal following with his quietly charismatic, unfailingly solid performances

Waterston, the third of four siblings (Roberta, George, and Ellen), was born in CambridgeMassachusetts. His mother, Alice Tucker (née Atkinson), a landscape painter, was of English ancestry, and a descendant of Mayflower passengers. His father, George Chychele Waterston, was an emigrant from Leith, Scotland, and a semanticist and language teacher.

In 2021, Waterston was cast in the revival Law & Order, reprising his role as District Attorney Jack McCoy.  The original Law & Order series began  in 1990 and ended in May 2010.  In the new version, you will see familiar and new faces to establish its’ return.  Sam Waterson is back for his 17th season portraying John James McCoy, and at 81, he sees it as ‘show business decided to give us a present’.  The present is for the fans of the show as well as the actors.

Personal life

Waterston and his first wife, Barbara Rutledge-Johns, divorced in 1975. They have one son, James, also an actor. Waterston remarried, his second wife is former model Lynn Louisa Woodruff, in 1976. They have three children, daughters Katherine Waterston and Elisabeth Waterston, who are also actresses, and a son, Graham.

Waterston is a board member of Oceana.[27] In 2012, Waterston received the Goodermote Humanitarian Award from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for his longtime support of refugees around the world.[28]

Waterston is a practicing Episcopalian and is currently a registered Democrat.

Waterston has a summer home in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts.

On October 18, 2019, Waterston was arrested with Grace and Frankie co-star Jane Fonda for protesting the government’s approach to climate change outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C.

Net worth estimated at $20 Million, receiving $65,000.00 per episode from Law and Order.

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