Daniel Eugene Butler (born December 2, 1954) is an American actor known for his role as Bob "Bulldog" Briscoe on the TV series ''

Frasier ''Frasier'' () is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for 11 seasons from September 16, 1993, to May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey (screenwriter), Peter Casey, and David Lee (scr ...

'' (1993–2004), later reprising the role in

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

; Art in ''

Roseanne ''Roseanne'' is an American television sitcom created by Matt Williams (producer), Matt Williams that originally aired on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from October 18, 1988, to May 20, 1997, and briefly revived from March 27, 2018, to May ...

'' (1991–1992); for the voice of Mr. Simmons on the ''

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...

'' TV show ''

Hey Arnold! ''Hey Arnold!'' is an American animated sitcom created by Craig Bartlett for Nickelodeon. It originally aired from October 7, 1996, to June 8, 2004. The show centers on fourth grader Arnold Shortman, who lives with his grandparents in an inner ...

'' (1997–2002), later reprising the role in '' Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie'' (2017); and for film roles in '' Enemy of the State'' (1998) and '' Sniper 2'' (2001).

Education

Butler was born in

Huntington, Indiana Huntington, known as the "Lime City", is the largest city in and the county seat of Huntington County, Indiana, Huntington County, Indiana, United States. It is in Huntington Township, Huntington County, Indiana, Huntington and Union Township, H ...

, and raised in Fort Wayne. He is the son of Shirley, a homemaker, and Andrew Butler, a pharmacist. While a drama student at

Purdue University Fort Wayne Purdue University Fort Wayne (PFW) is a public university in Fort Wayne, Indiana. A campus of Purdue University, Purdue Fort Wayne was founded on July 1, 2018, when its predecessor university, Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne fo ...

in 1975, he received the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship, sponsored by the

Kennedy Center The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, commonly known as the Kennedy Center, is the national cultural center of the United States, located on the eastern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Opened on September 8, ...

. From 1976 to 1978, he trained at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

Career

Butler is best known for his role as Bob "Bulldog" Briscoe in the NBC sitcom ''

'', appearing in every season but one between 1993 and 2004. The character was a volatile, boorish, intensely macho sports presenter who hosted the show which followed Frasier's daily broadcast at the radio station KACL. Butler directed one episode during season five of ''Frasier''. He is also one of two actors to play two characters in the Hannibal Lecter franchise. In 1986, he played the role of Jimmy Price, a technician in the film '' Manhunter''; then, 5 years later, he played the role of Roden in 1991's '' The Silence of The Lambs''. The other actor is

Frankie Faison Frankie Russel Faison (born June 10, 1949) is an American actor known for his role as Deputy Commissioner, and, later, Commissioner, Ervin Burrell in the HBO series ''The Wire'', as Barney Matthews in the ''Hannibal Lecter'' franchise, and as Su ...

. In 1998, Butler played the role of NSA Director Admiral Shaffer in '' Enemy of the State'' and in 2006, Butler produced and starred in the faux documentary ''Karl Rove, I Love You'' (which he also co-wrote and co-directed). Other film work includes roles in ''Prayers for Bobby'' and ''Longtime Companion''. Butler is an established stage actor. In 2018, he played Lenin in the Broadway revival of Tom Stoppard's ''

Travesties ''Travesties'' is a 1974 play by Tom Stoppard. It centres on the figure of Henry Wilfred Carr, Henry Carr, an old man who reminisces about Zürich in 1917 during World War I, the First World War, and his interactions with James Joyce when he w ...

''. Other recent appearances include as

Truman Capote Truman Garcia Capote ( ; born Truman Streckfus Persons; September 30, 1924 – August 25, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics ...

in American Repertory Theater's 2017 production of Rob Roth's ''Warhol/Capote'' and Jack in the 2013 Off-Broadway production of Conor McPherson's '' The Weir''.

Personal life

Butler lives in Vermont and is married to producer Richard Waterhouse. He

came out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. This is often framed and debated as a privacy issue, ...

to his family when he was in his early 20s. He wrote a one-man show, ''The Only Thing Worse You Could Have Told Me'', which opened in Los Angeles in 1994 and also played in San Francisco and off-Broadway in New York. It was Butler's public coming out. The play had ten characters "just processing what gay means". He was nominated for the 1995

Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been c ...

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Butler, Dan 1954 births 20th-century American LGBTQ people 20th-century American male actors 21st-century American LGBTQ people 21st-century American male actors American gay actors American male film actors American male television actors Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne alumni LGBTQ people from Indiana Living people Male actors from Fort Wayne, Indiana People from Huntington, Indiana