John Victor Shea III is an American actor, film producer and stage director.
31 Facts About John Shea
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John Shea's career began on Broadway where he starred in Yentl, subsequently winning his first major award, the 1975 Theatre World Award.
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Shortly after his Off-Broadway career began, Lee Strasberg invited Shea to join the Actors Studio where he spent several years studying method acting.
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John Shea made his television film debut in The Nativity, alongside Madeleine Stowe.
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John Shea has been noted for his political involvement in social equity, which in 1984 led him to organize the largest peace rally in the history of the United States, garnering praise by various non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International.
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In 2014, John Shea announced his directorial debut with Grey Lady, released in mid-2017.
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John Shea was born in North Conway, New Hampshire, near where his father was teaching at Fryeburg Academy, Maine, and was raised in the Sixteen Acres area of Springfield, Massachusetts, with four siblings.
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John Shea's parents were Elizabeth Mary and Dr John Victor Shea, Jr.
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John Shea attended Roman Catholic schools in Springfield, graduating from Cathedral High School, where he captained the varsity debate team and played varsity football and track.
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John Shea studied at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, where he earned a bachelor's degree in theatre.
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John Shea performed on the varsity debating and football teams and co-edited the college literary magazine, Puffed Wheat, before graduating in 1970.
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John Shea made his television film debut as Joseph in The Nativity opposite Madeleine Stowe as Mary, a biblical epic shot in Spain.
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The film, shot on locations in Mexico, won the Palme d'Or at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival and helped launch John Shea's international acting career.
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John Shea went on to be cast in the title role in Nancy Hasty's The Director, and, later, in Israel Horovitz's The Secret of Madame Bonnard's Bath.
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In 1984 John Shea starred in Armyan Bernstein's Windy City along with Kate Capshaw.
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John Shea won the "Best Actor" award at the Montreal World Film Festival in 1984.
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John Shea made his Carnegie Hall debut playing "The Soldier" in Tom O'Horgan's 1985 production of Igor Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat, with Pinchas Zukerman and Andre de Shields.
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John Shea starred in Small Sacrifices alongside Farrah Fawcett in 1989, and in Jim Goddard's British production of Kennedy later that year, starring Martin Sheen and Blair Brown, in which Shea portrayed another Bates alumnus, Robert F Kennedy.
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John Shea's starring run of the series ended on an enjoyable note for Shea; the series finale includes a virtual reality sequence in which Lex Luthor flies over Metropolis in a modified Superman costume.
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In 1998 John Shea co-wrote and directed the independent film Southie, starring Donnie Wahlberg, Rose McGowan, Amanda Peet, Anne Meara, Will Arnett and Lawrence Tierney.
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John Shea starred in the independent film The Adventures of Sebastian Cole.
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John Shea was contracted later that year to be a reader on Selected Shorts for Symphony Space, broadcast nationwide on Public Radio International.
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John Shea's reading of Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory" won AudioFile Magazines Earphones Award in 1999, as part of the anthology Selected Shorts: Classic Tales, Vol.
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When casting for Gossip Girl began in 2007, John Shea was asked to join the recurring cast as Harold Waldorf, Blair Waldorf's father.
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John Shea was cast in Scott Dacko's 2006 political thriller The Insurgents with Mary Stuart Masterson.
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John Shea voiced the central character Sylvain in the English dub of the animated feature film Gandahar.
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John Shea was cast in the 2010 American drama film An Invisible Sign with Jessica Alba.
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John Shea was cast alongside Lea Thompson in the 2012 romantic comedy The Trouble With the Truth.
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At the start of 2014, John Shea appeared in Madam Secretary as Ted Graham.
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In 2015, John Shea joined the cast of Agent X as Thomas Eckhart.
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John Shea is the Artistic Director Emeritus of the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket, where he helped produce 40 productions.