The Practice

Camryn Manheim is an American actress known primarily for her roles as attorney Ellenor Frutt on ABC's The Practice, Delia Banks on CBS's Ghost Whisperer and as Elvis's mother, Gladys Presley in the 2005 mini-series Elvis. Manheim was born Debra Frances Manheim in Caldwell, New Jersey and grew up... in Peoria, Illinois. She is the daughter of Sylvia, a teacher, and Jerome Manheim, a mathematics professor. Her family is Jewish. Manheim became interested in acting after working at a Renaissance fair in high school. Manheim graduated from University of California, Santa Cruz with a BFA degree in 1984 and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program with an MFA degree in 1987. Manheim worked for a while as a sign language interpreter at hospitals. Her knowledge of sign language was utilized at times on The Practice, an episode of Law & Order and also for her role as a Child Behavioral Psychologist in the movie Mercury Rising. In 1983, she made a brief appearance as a girl in an elevator in Sudden Impact alongside Clint Eastwood in the post-courtroom scene at the beginning.
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Michael Emerson is an American actor who is perhaps best known for his roles as Benjamin Linus on Lost and fictional serial killer William Hinks in The Practice. In 2011 he began co-starring in the CBS series Person of Interest as Harold Finch. Emerson was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and grew up... in the nearby town of Toledo, where he attended South Tama County High School. In 1976, after graduating from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he studied theater and art, he moved to New York City. Unable to find acting work, he took retail jobs and worked as a freelance illustrator. In 1986, he moved with his first wife to Jacksonville, Florida. There, from 1986 to 1993, he appeared in local productions at Theater Jacksonville and The Players by the Sea and worked as a director and teacher at Flagler College. Emerson considered forgoing a career in acting in favor of a more stable vocation in teaching. He decided to instead further his studies with a Master of Fine Arts that might also introduce him to theatre professionals and directors in his chosen trade.
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James Todd Spader is an American actor best known for his eccentric roles in films such as Pretty in Pink; Less Than Zero; Sex, Lies, and Videotape; Crash; Stargate; and Secretary. His most famous television roles are those of the colorful attorney Alan Shore in The Practice and its spin-off... Boston Legal, for which he won three Emmy Awards, and Robert California in The Office. Spader was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of teachers Jean and Stoddard Greenwood "Todd" Spader. During his early education, he attended The Pike School and enrolled in the Brooks School for one year in North Andover, Massachusetts. Spader later transferred to Phillips Academy, but dropped out of school in the eleventh grade to pursue acting at the Michael Chekhov School in New York City. Before becoming a full-time actor, Spader held a variety of jobs including being a yoga instructor, busboy, truck driver, stable boy, and railroad-car loader.
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Mark Anthony McDermott , better known by his professional name of Dylan McDermott, is an American actor, known for his role as lawyer and law firm head Bobby Donnell on the television legal drama The Practice which earned him a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination and his role in the series American... Horror Story as Dr. Ben Harmon. He also starred in the TNT series Dark Blue as Lt. Carter Shaw. McDermott was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, to Diane and Richard McDermott. His Italian American mother was fifteen and his Irish American father was seventeen when he was born. By 1967, the couple had divorced, and Diane and her children were living with her mother. On February 9, 1967, his mother was accidentally shot and killed with her boyfriend's gun; McDermott was five. Her boyfriend reported to newspapers at the time that she picked up his gun and it went off. He and his sister, Robin, then began to be raised by their maternal grandmother, Avis Marino, in Waterbury. As a teenager, McDermott began taking trips to visit his father, who owned the West Fourth Street Saloon in New York City.
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Edward Kirk Herrmann is an American television and film actor. He is best known for his Emmy-nominated portrayals of Franklin D. Roosevelt on television, and to younger generations for his role as Richard Gilmore in Gilmore Girls, as a ubiquitous narrator for historical programs on the History... Channel, and as the spokesman for Dodge automobiles in the 1990s. Herrmann was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Jean Eleanor and John Anthony Herrmann. He has German ancestry on his father's side. Herrmann grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and graduated from Bucknell University in 1965, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi. He studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art on a Fulbright Fellowship. Herrmann began his career in theatre. One of the first professional productions he appeared in was the U.S. premiere of Michael Weller's Moonchildren at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. in November 1971. He moved with the show to New York City to make his Broadway debut the following year. Herrmann returned to Broadway in 1976 to portray Frank Gardner in the revival of Mrs. Warren's Profession.
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Alfre Ette Woodard is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Awards, 17 times for Emmy Awards , and has also won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. She is known for her role in films such as Cross Creek, Miss... Firecracker, Grand Canyon, Passion Fish, Primal Fear, Star Trek: First Contact, Miss Evers' Boys, K-PAX, Radio, Take the Lead and The Family That Preys. Woodard was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to Constance, a homemaker, and Marion H. Woodard, an entrepreneur and interior designer. Woodard attended Bishop Kelley High School, a private Catholic school in Tulsa. She studied drama at Boston University, from which she graduated. Woodard has made numerous appearances in television series and motion pictures. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1983 film Cross Creek. In 1993 she starred in the film Passion Fish for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
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Holland Virginia Taylor is an American actress of film, stage and television. Her notable television roles include Ruth Dunbar in Bosom Buddies, senator's wife Margaret Powers on Norman Lear's The Powers That Be, Judge Roberta Kittleson in The Practice and Evelyn Harper in Two and a Half Men.... Taylor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1943, the daughter of Virginia, a painter, and C. Tracy Taylor, an attorney. She is the youngest of three girls in the family; her sisters are Patricia and Pamela. Taylor attended high school at Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school in West Chester, Pennsylvania. She then majored in drama at Bennington College graduating in 1964, before moving to New York City to become an actress. Taylor's long career began in the theater. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s she appeared in numerous Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, including starring roles in Simon Gray's Butley and A. R. Gurney's The Cocktail Hour; for the latter she was nominated for a Drama Desk award.
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Sharon Vonne Stone is an American actress, film producer, and former fashion model. She achieved international recognition for her role in the erotic thriller Basic Instinct. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture... Drama for her performance in Casino. Stone was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania. The second of four children, she is the daughter of Dorothy , an accountant and homemaker, and Joseph William Stone II, a tool and die manufacturer and factory worker. Stone graduated in 1975 from Saegertown High School in Saegertown, Pennsylvania. Stone won the title of Miss Crawford County in Meadville, and was a candidate for Miss Pennsylvania. One of the pageant judges said she should quit school and move to New York City to become a fashion model. In 1977, Stone left Meadville, moving in with an aunt in New Jersey. Within four days of her arrival in New Jersey, she was signed by Ford Modeling Agency in New York. While living in Europe, she decided to quit modeling and become an actress.
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William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, author and film director. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T. Kirk, captain of the USS Enterprise, in the science fiction television series Star Trek from 1966 to 1969, Star Trek:... The Animated Series from 1973 to 1974, and in seven of the subsequent Star Trek feature films from 1979 to 1994. He has written a series of books chronicling his experiences playing Captain Kirk and being a part of Star Trek, and has co-written several novels set in the Star Trek universe. He has also authored a series of science fiction novels called TekWar that were adapted for television.
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