Topic: Barry Corbin

Leonard Barrie "Barry" Corbin (born October 16, 1940) is an American actor with more than one hundred film, television and video game credits.

Corbin began his life as a Shakespearean actor in the 1960s, but today he is more likely to be seen in the role of the local sheriff, military leader, or some other authority figure, though on occasion, he has effectively portrayed murderous villains as well. To moviegoers he is well remembered as General Beringer in WarGames, John Travolta's uncle in Urban Cowboy, co-starring with Clint Eastwood in Any Which Way You Can, or Roscoe Brown, who was July Johnson's bumbling deputy, in the acclaimed western Lonesome Dove.

In 1983-1984, Corbin played Merit Sawyer in the NBC television series Boone. Corbin's role was that of father to the young actor Tom Byrd, who played Boone Sawyer, an aspiring singer. The program was set in rural Tennessee during the 1950s and was created by Earl Hamner, who had great success earlier with CBS's The Waltons. From 1990 to 1995, Corbin portrayed former astronaut Maurice Minnifield on CBS's Northern Exposure, for which he received an Emmy nomination. In 1994, Corbin narrated the acclaimed TBS documentary MoonShot, telling the story of the 1960s space race from the first-person viewpoint of Mercury Seven astronaut Deke Slayton. In 2007, He played the character Clay Johnson, father of Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson on The Closer series.