David Rasche
Encyclopedia
Early life and career
Rasche was born in St. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. His father was a minister and farmer. Rasche started in theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
, but also has appeared on numerous movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s and television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
series. He became a member of the Chicago Second City
The Second City
The Second City is a improvisational comedy enterprise which originated in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood.The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959 and has since expanded its presence to several other cities, including Toronto and Los Angeles...
, after John Belushi
John Belushi
John Adam Belushi was an American comedian, actor, and musician, best known as one of the original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, The Star of the Films National Lampoon's Animal House and the The Blues Brothers and for fronting the American blues and soul...
moved on to Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the title character in the cult TV classic, Sledge Hammer!
Sledge Hammer!
Sledge Hammer! is an American satirical police sitcom produced by New World Television that ran for two seasons on ABC from 1986 to 1988. The series was created by Alan Spencer and stars David Rasche as Inspector Sledge Hammer, a preposterous caricature of the standard "cop on the edge" character,...
Rasche has a scholarly background (graduate degree from the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
) and also worked as a teacher and writer before going into show business full-time. After Second City, he starred in the Organic Theater's 1974 production of Mamet's "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," which established the playwright's characteristic blend of earthy, sometimes brutal dialogue. He later played to critical acclaim in the Broadway production of Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow," and an Off-Broadway revival of Mamet's Edmond
Edmond
Edmond may refer to:People* Edmond de Goncourt* Edmond James de Rothschild* Edmond O'BrienPlacesIn the United States:* Edmond, Kansas* Edmond, Oklahoma* Edmonds, WashingtonOther uses* Edmond , a 1982 play by David Mamet...
. He was Petruchio
Petruchio
Petruchio is the male romantic lead in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew . Petruchio is a fortune seeker who enters into a marriage with a strong-willed young woman named Kate and then proceeds to "tame" her temperamental spirit...
to Frances Conroy
Frances Conroy
Frances Conroy is an American actress. She is best known for playing Ruth, the matriarch of the Fisher family, on Six Feet Under, which earned her a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award.-Early life:...
's Kate in a production of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew directed by Zoe Caldwell
Zoe Caldwell
Zoe Caldwell, OBE is an Australian-born actress.-Early life:She was born as Ada Caldwell in Melbourne, Australia and was raised in the suburb of Balwyn in Yongala Street. Her father, Edgar, was a plumber and her mother, Zoe, was a taxi dancer. Caldwell's mother, Zoe, had a Peugeot of 1950 vintage...
at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut
Stratford, Connecticut
Stratford is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Housatonic River. It was founded by Puritans in 1639....
in the mid-1980s.
In 1974, he fronted $1,000 to help start Victory Gardens Theater
Victory Gardens Theater
Victory Gardens Theater is a theater in Chicago, Illinois dedicated to the development and production of new plays and playwrights. The theater was founded in 1974 when seven Chicago artists, Warren Casey, Cordis Heard, Roberta Maguire, Mac McGuinnes, Cecil O'Neal, June Pyskaček, and David Rasche...
in Chicago. He began appearing on TV and films in 1977, making his film debut in 1978 in An Unmarried Woman
An Unmarried Woman
An Unmarried Woman is a 1978 American comedy-drama film that tells the story of the wealthy New York wife Erica Benton whose “perfect” life is shattered when her stockbroker husband Martin leaves her for a younger woman. The film documents Erica's attempts at being single again, where she suffers...
, directed by Paul Mazursky
Paul Mazursky
Paul Mazursky is an American film director, screenwriter and actor.-Personal life:He was born Irwin Mazursky in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jean , a piano player for dance classes, and David Mazursky, a laborer. Mazursky was born to a Jewish family; his grandfather was an immigrant from...
. The following year, he had a small part in Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
's Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. Later, he appeared on the Miami Vice
Miami Vice
Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
episode "Bushido" (first aired November 22, 1985) as a KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
agent attempting to capture a former colleague of Lt. Castillo (Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos
Edward James Olmos is an American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are William Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Lt...
). Ironically, during his subsequent starring role on Sledge Hammer!
Sledge Hammer!
Sledge Hammer! is an American satirical police sitcom produced by New World Television that ran for two seasons on ABC from 1986 to 1988. The series was created by Alan Spencer and stars David Rasche as Inspector Sledge Hammer, a preposterous caricature of the standard "cop on the edge" character,...
his character would often makes jokes about Miami Vice
Miami Vice
Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
, the show Rasche himself had guest starred on. Rasche is married to Heather Lupton with whom he has three children and who made a guest appearance in the series Sledge Hammer as Hammer's ex-wife.
Sledge Hammer!
He played the title role in the late 1980s series Sledge Hammer!Sledge Hammer!
Sledge Hammer! is an American satirical police sitcom produced by New World Television that ran for two seasons on ABC from 1986 to 1988. The series was created by Alan Spencer and stars David Rasche as Inspector Sledge Hammer, a preposterous caricature of the standard "cop on the edge" character,...
, a spoof series about a violent and chauvinistic policeman. A few years earlier, he played a terrorist in the 1983 TV movie Special Bulletin
Special Bulletin
Special Bulletin is an American made-for-TV movie first broadcast in 1983. It was an early collaboration between director Edward Zwick and writer Marshall Herskovitz, a team that would later produce such series as thirtysomething and My So-Called Life...
.
Later career
He had a minor role as a photographer in the movie Cobra alongside Brigitte NielsenBrigitte Nielsen
Brigitte Nielsen is a Danish model, actress, musician and reality television personality who began her career modelling for Greg Gorman and Helmut Newton and several years later made appearances in the 1985 films Red Sonja and Rocky IV and is also known for her marriage to Sylvester Stallone...
. He also starred in the early-'90s NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
sitcom Nurses
Nurses (TV series)
Nurses is an American sitcom that aired on NBC from 1991 to 1994, developed and produced by Susan Harris as a spin-off of Empty Nest .-Synopsis:...
.
Rasche played the role of Ted Forstmann in the 1993 made for television movie Barbarians at the Gate, about the leveraged buyout
Leveraged buyout
A leveraged buyout occurs when an investor, typically financial sponsor, acquires a controlling interest in a company's equity and where a significant percentage of the purchase price is financed through leverage...
(LBO) of RJR Nabisco
RJR Nabisco
RJR Nabisco, Inc., was an American conglomerate formed in 1985 by the merger of Nabisco Brands and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. RJR Nabisco was purchased in 1988 by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co...
. Forstmann was a critic of KKR's Henry Kravis
Henry Kravis
Henry R. Kravis is an American businessman and private equity investor. He is the co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., a private equity firm with over $62 billion in assets as of 2011. He has an estimated net worth of $3.7 billion as of September 2011, ranked by Forbes as the 88th richest...
and his investment methods. Forstmann's criticism of Kravis (and much of the rest of the financial industry during the 1980s) centred around the use of junk bond (high-yield) investments to raise large amounts of capital. When the junk bond market later fell into disfavour as a result of scandal, Forstmann's criticism was seen as prescient, as his more conventional investment strategy had been able to maintain nearly the same level of profitability as companies such as KKR and Revlon
Revlon
Revlon is an American cosmetics, skin care, fragrance, and personal care company founded in 1932.-History:Revlon was founded in the midst of the Great Depression, 1932, by Charles Revson and his brother Joseph, along with a chemist, Charles Lachman, who contributed the "L" in the Revlon name...
that built their strategy around high-yield debt
High-yield debt
In finance, a high-yield bond is a bond that is rated below investment grade...
.
In addition to his work as a screen actor, Rasche can also be heard as Captain Piett in the NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
radio adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back.
Rasche starred in an episode of Columbo in 1997 as a forensic investigator who turns out to be a murderer.
He had a cameo role in the West Wing episode "The State Dinner", playing a Democratic Party supporter who is also escorting Sam Seaborn's
Sam Seaborn
Samuel Norman "Sam" Seaborn is a fictional character portrayed by Rob Lowe on the television serial drama The West Wing. He is best known for being Deputy White House Communications Director in the Josiah Bartlet administration throughout the first four seasons of the series.-Creation and...
call-girl girlfriend.
He appeared as Stig Ludwigssen in the 2000 movie The Big Tease
The Big Tease
The Big Tease is a 1999 comedy film starring Craig Ferguson, directed by Kevin Allen, and written by Ferguson and Sacha Gervasi.- Plot :Ferguson plays Crawford Mackenzie, a Scottish hairdresser who, while being filmed as part of a fly-on-the-wall documentary, is invited to the World Hairdresser...
starring Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson is a Scottish American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, and producer. He is the host of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, an Emmy Award-nominated, Peabody Award-winning late-night talk show that airs on CBS...
.
Rasche played the President in the short-lived 2001 television series DAG
Dag
-Places:*Dág , a village*Dąg, a village in Poland*DAG, the British National Rail station code for Dalgety Bay railway station, Scotland*DAG, the IATA code for Barstow-Daggett Airport, California, USA...
and in the 2006 film The Sentinel
The Sentinel (2006 film)
The Sentinel is a 2006 action thriller film about a veteran United States Secret Service bodyguard who is suspected as a traitor after an attempted assassination of the president reveals that someone within the Service is providing information to the assassins...
. He starred as a crooked police officer in the Tom Selleck
Tom Selleck
Thomas William "Tom" Selleck is an American actor, and film producer. He is best known for his starring role as Hawaii-based private investigator Thomas Magnum on the 1980s television show Magnum, P.I.. He also plays Police Chief Jesse Stone in a series of made-for-TV movies based on the Robert B....
movie An Innocent Man
An Innocent Man (film)
An Innocent Man, is a 1989 crime thriller film directed by Peter Yates, and starring Tom Selleck. The film follows James Rainwood, an airline mechanic sent to prison when framed by crooked police officers.-Plot:...
.
He has a minor appearance in Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide...
's Flags of Our Fathers
Flags of Our Fathers (film)
is a 2006 American war film directed, co-produced and scored by Clint Eastwood and written by William Broyles, Jr. and Paul Haggis. It is based on the book of the same name written by James Bradley and Ron Powers about the Battle of Iwo Jima, the five Marines and one Navy Corpsman who were involved...
.
He also portrays the late Donald Greene, one of the passengers of doomed flight 93
United Airlines Flight 93
United Airlines Flight 93 was United Airlines' scheduled morning transcontinental flight across the United States from Newark International Airport in Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco International Airport in California. On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the Boeing 757–222 aircraft operating the...
, in Paul Greengrass
Paul Greengrass
Paul Greengrass is an English film director, screenwriter and former journalist. He specialises in dramatisations of real-life events and is known for his signature use of hand-held cameras.-Life and career:...
' controversial 9/11
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
film United 93
United 93 (film)
United 93 is a 2006 fact-based historical drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Paul Greengrass that chronicles events aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked during the September 11 attacks...
. He is presently working on Garrett Bennett's The Spy & the Sparrow.
He also played the role of Robert Gardner on All My Children
All My Children
All My Children is an American television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 5, 1970 to September 23, 2011. Created by Agnes Nixon, All My Children is set in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, a fictitious suburb of Philadelphia. The show features Susan Lucci as Erica Kane, one of daytime's most...
in 2008, and played a CIA officer in Burn After Reading
Burn After Reading
Burn After Reading is a 2008 black comedy film written, produced, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The film stars George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Brad Pitt. It was released in the United States on September 12, 2008, and it was released on October 17, 2008...
in 2008.
In Fall 2008, Rasche starred in the ill-fated Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
adaptation of To Be or Not to Be
To Be or Not to Be (1942 film)
To Be or Not to Be is a 1942 American comedy directed by Ernst Lubitsch, about a troupe of actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who use their abilities at disguise and acting to fool the occupying troops. It was adapted by Lubitsch and Edwin Justus Mayer from the story by Melchior Lengyel...
, in a reprisal of Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
's role as Joseph Tura.
He had a major role in the 2009 satirical political comedy In The Loop
In the Loop (film)
In the Loop is a 2009 British satirical black comedy film directed by Armando Iannucci. It is based on the BBC Television series The Thick of It satirising Anglo-American politics in the 21st century and the Invasion of Iraq...
, as a US official pushing for an invasion of an unspecified Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
ern country.
Rasche joined the cast of Ugly Betty
Ugly Betty
Ugly Betty is an American comedy-drama television series developed by Silvio Horta, which premiered on ABC on September 28, 2006, and ended on April 14, 2010. The series revolves around the character Betty Suarez and is based on Fernando Gaitán's Colombian telenovela soap opera Yo soy Betty, la fea...
as a recurring member in the show's third season
Ugly Betty (season 3)
The third season of the American dramedy television series Ugly Betty was confirmed in the ABC lineup, which was picked up for a full season on February 11, 2008. The season premiere aired on September 25, 2008 and ended with a special double-episode on May 21, 2009.In Australia, Season 3 premiered...
in 2009 for the final five episodes of that season, and remained in the cast until mid-season four when his character's arc ended.
Recently he acted as an alcoholic immigration officer in Brazilian movie Olhos Azuis, receiving praising critics.
Most recently, he played James Wheeler on AMC's Rubicon
Rubicon (tv series)
Rubicon is an American television series created by Jason Horwitch and produced by Henry Bromell that was broadcast on the AMC television network...
.
Filmography
- Die verlorene Zeit - Daniel Levine (2011)
- In the LoopIn the LoopIn the Loop is an idiom meaning "informed" or "up-to-date". It may also refer to:*In The Loop, a radio and internet program produced by Minnesota Public Radio*In the Loop , a 2009 feature film directed by Armando Iannucci...
- Linton Barwick (2009) - Olhos Azuis - Marshall (2009)
- Crimes of the PastCrimes of the PastCrimes of the Past, also known as The Spy and the Sparrow, is a 2009 thriller film starring David Rasche and Eric Roberts.-Plot:Retired CIA Agent Thomas Sparrow retires and returns home to Seattle to try to reconnect with his long-lost daughter , but a former colleague complicates things by...
- Thomas Sparrow (2009) - Burn After ReadingBurn After ReadingBurn After Reading is a 2008 black comedy film written, produced, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The film stars George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Brad Pitt. It was released in the United States on September 12, 2008, and it was released on October 17, 2008...
- CIA Officer (2008) - The Girl in the ParkThe Girl in the ParkThe Girl in the Park is a drama film by writer/director David Auburn, who makes his directorial debut here after having written the films Proof in 2005 and The Lake House in 2006...
- Doug (2007) - The Sentinel - President Ballentine (2006)
- Just MarriedJust MarriedJust Married is a 2003 American romantic comedy film directed by Shawn Levy and written by Sam Harper starring Ashton Kutcher and the late Brittany Murphy. In its opening week, the film was number one, making $17 million at the box office. It stayed in the Top 10 for 4 weeks.-Plot:The film starts...
- Mr. McNerney (2003) - The Big TeaseThe Big TeaseThe Big Tease is a 1999 comedy film starring Craig Ferguson, directed by Kevin Allen, and written by Ferguson and Sacha Gervasi.- Plot :Ferguson plays Crawford Mackenzie, a Scottish hairdresser who, while being filmed as part of a fly-on-the-wall documentary, is invited to the World Hairdresser...
- Stig Ludwigssen (2000) - Friends & LoversFriends & LoversFriends & Lovers may refer to:*"Friends and Lovers" , a 1986 hit song performed by Gloria Loring and Carl Anderson*Friends and Lovers , starring Adolphe Menjou and directed by Victor Schertzinger...
- Richard 'Richie' Wickham (1999) - That Old FeelingThat Old FeelingThat Old Feeling may refer to:*"That Old Feeling" , a 1937 popular song, best known in a 1955 version by Patti Page*That Old Feeling , a 1997 romantic comedy*That Old Feeling, an album by Billy Eckstine...
- Alan (1997) - Magic in the WaterMagic in the WaterMagic in the Water is a 1995 family film directed by Rick Stevenson and starring Mark Harmon, Sarah Wayne and Joshua Jackson. It is about a fictional lake monster in British Columbia...
- Phillip (1995) - Delirious - Dr.Paul Kirkwood/Dennis (1991)
- CobraCobraCobra is a venomous snake belonging to the family Elapidae. However, not all snakes commonly referred to as cobras are of the same genus, or even of the same family. The name is short for cobra capo or capa Snake, which is Portuguese for "snake with hood", or "hood-snake"...
- Dan (1986) - ABC Grammar RockSchoolhouse Rock!Schoolhouse Rock! is an American interstitial programming series of animated musical educational short films that aired during the Saturday morning children's programming on the U.S. television network ABC. The topics covered included grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics...
- (1985) - Best DefenseBest DefenseBest Defense is a comedy film starring Dudley Moore and Eddie Murphy. It was released in 1984 by Paramount Pictures.-Plot:The movie takes place as two parallel plots separated by several years: Moore is an engineer developing a targeting system on a tank for the United States Army and Murphy is an...
- Jeff the 'KBG' Agent (1984) - Fighting BackFighting BackFighting Back, released in 1986, is a live album by the British heavy metal band Cloven Hoof. Unusually for a live album, it features a selection of new tracks not featured on previous albums, although the song "Eye of the Sun" would later resurface on their 2006 album of the same name and "Reach...
- Michael Taylor (1982) - Honky Tonk FreewayHonky Tonk FreewayHonky Tonk Freeway is a UK comedy film directed by John Schlesinger. It was released in August 1981 by Universal Studios. The film, conceived and co-produced by Don Boyd, was one of the most expensive box office flops in history, losing its British backers Thorn-EMI an estimated $11,000,000 and...
- Eddie White (1981)