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G. W. Bailey

{{Short description|American actor (born 1944)}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2023}}

{{Infobox person

| name = G. W. Bailey

| image = G.W. Bailey.jpg

| caption = Bailey as Captain Harris in Police Academy

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1944|08|27}}

| birth_place = Port Arthur, Texas, U.S.

| occupation = Actor

| yearsactive = 1974–present

| spouse = {{marriage|Eleanor Jane Goosby|1966|1999|end=divorced}}

| children = 2

}}

G. W. Bailey (born August 27, 1944){{Cite web |title=G.W. Bailey |url=https://www.museumofthegulfcoast.org/gw-bailey |access-date=2024-07-19 | publisher=Museum of the Gulf Coast}} is an American actor. His roles include Staff Sergeant Luther Rizzo in M*A*S*H (TV series 1979–1983), Lieutenant/Captain Thaddeus Harris in the Police Academy films (1984–1994), and Captain Felix Maxwell in Mannequin (1987). He played Detective Lieutenant Louie Provenza on TNT's television crime drama The Closer and its spin-off series Major Crimes from 2005 to 2018.

Life and career

Bailey was born in Port Arthur, Texas, where he went to Thomas Jefferson High School with Janis Joplin and Jimmy Johnson. He started college at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont and transferred to Texas Tech University in Lubbock.{{cite journal |title=Tech Theater: Experimental in Nature |journal=La Ventana |date=1966 |volume=041 |page=412 |url=http://hdl.handle.net/2346/48706 |access-date=January 22, 2023 |publisher=Texas Tech University |language=en |hdl=2346/48706}}

Bailey left college and spent the mid-1960s working at local theater companies before moving to California in the mid-1970s. He broke into television with a small recurring role as a crime scene police officer on the short-lived detective show Harry O. He then landed one-shot episodic roles on television programs of the day such as Starsky and Hutch and Charlie's Angels. His film debut was in A Force of One (1979), an early Chuck Norris film. By the late 1970s, he got his breakout role as the conniving, cigar-chomping goldbricker Sgt. Luther Rizzo in M*A*S*H.{{cite web |last1=Murray |first1=Noel |url=https://www.avclub.com/g-w-bailey-1798214725 |title=G.W. Bailey |website=The A.V. Club |access-date=July 19, 2024 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240704014609/https://www.avclub.com/g-w-bailey-1798214725 |archive-date=July 4, 2024 |date=August 26, 2008}} He also appeared as Tom Berenger's sidekick in Rustler's Rhapsody (1985).

He returned to college in 1993, and graduated from Southwest Texas State University, now Texas State, in San Marcos, Texas in May 1993, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Theatre. For the 1999–2000 school year, he was the Artist-in-Residence.{{Citation needed |date=March 2024}}

In the late 1990s, he starred in three of the seventeen television films and miniseries in the Bible Collection series produced for the TNT television network: Solomon (1997), Jesus (1999), and Paul (2000).

From 2001 to 2019, Bailey served as the executive director of the Sunshine Kids Foundation,{{cite web |url=http://www.sunshinekids.org/who-we-are/staff.htm |title=The Sunshine Kids Foundation staff |website=Sunshinekids.org |publisher=Sunshine Kids Foundation |access-date=October 5, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171014185658/http://www.sunshinekids.org/who-we-are/staff.htm |archive-date=October 14, 2017 |url-status=dead}} which provides trips and activities for hundreds of young cancer patients annually. He first volunteered with the organization after his goddaughter was diagnosed with leukemia.

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Filmography (film and TV)

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References

External links

  • {{IMDb name|0047265}}
  • [http://www.sunshinekids.org/ The Sunshine Kids]
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20131103132344/http://www.museumofthegulfcoast.org/personalities-notable-people-gw-bailey.html G.W. Bailey - Museum of the Gulf Coast, Port Arthur, TX]

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Category:1944 births

Category:Living people

Category:Male actors from Texas

Category:American male film actors

Category:American male stage actors

Category:American male television actors

Category:People from Port Arthur, Texas

Category:Lamar University alumni

Category:Texas Tech University alumni

Category:Texas State University alumni

Category:20th-century American male actors

Category:21st-century American male actors