Advertisement

Topic: Ted McGinley

Jump to
Latest Headlines

Ted McGinley News




Wiki

Theodore Martin "Ted" McGinley (born May 30, 1957) is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as Jefferson D'Arcy on the television series Married... with Children and as Charley Shanowski on the former ABC sitcom Hope & Faith. He was also a regular on Happy Days and The Love Boat.

McGinley began his career in modeling. After a casting director spotted a picture of him in GQ, he was cast in comedy series Happy Days as Roger Phillips (nephew of the Cunninghams), a role he played from 1980-1984. During the run of Happy Days, he landed a role in the 1982 comedy Young Doctors in Love. After Happy Days ended in 1984, McGinley appeared in Revenge of the Nerds where he played Stanley Gable, the head of the jock-run Alpha Beta fraternity and the primary antagonist of the Lambda Lambda Lambda nerd fraternity; he reprised the role in the third and fourth movies in the "Nerds" franchise, both produced for television. He went on to appear in regular roles in television series including The Love Boat and Dynasty. He then went into the role of Jefferson D'Arcy on Married... with Children from 1991-1997. He had recurring roles on Aaron Sorkin's TV shows Sports Night, as Dana's boyfriend Gordon, and The West Wing as a TV news anchor. From 2003-2006, he played Charley Shanowski on Hope & Faith.

McGinley has been called "the patron saint of shark-jumping" by jumptheshark.com founder Jon Hein. This is a reference to the popular and enduring shows which have featured him in their declining years. Such shows include Happy Days, The Love Boat and Dynasty. Hein writes that this is not a comment "on Ted's fine acting skills" and that "he has a great sense of humor about it, too". In one episode of Married... with Children (a show that stayed on the air for six seasons after McGinley's addition to the cast) McGinley himself spoofed this fact by asking Al "Another picture, captain? I mean, Fonzie? ....Al?". A 2003 issue of People that focused on McGinley's casting on Hope and Faith was titled "Ted McGinley Is Not a Killer", referencing his reputation for causing shows to jump the shark, though his long involvement with Married... with Children suggests otherwise; his contributions may have enabled the series to have a longer and more successful run.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ted McGinley."