Biography
A dependable presence on television and in the occasional feature for decades, actor-producer Mark Harmon broke free of roles that hinged on his all-American looks and appeal and displayed a talent for complex men, ranging from a doctor with HIV on "St. Elsewhere" (NBC, 1982-88), serial killer Ted Bundy in "The Deliberate Stranger" (NBC, 1986) and his long-running turn as no-nonsense Special Agent Gibbs on "NCIS" (CBS, 2003- ). Born Thomas Mark Harmon on September 2, 1951 in Burbank, California, he was the son of college football great Tom Harmon and his wife, actress Elyse Knox, and for a time, it appeared that Harmon would follow in his father's footsteps and establish a career in sports. After graduating from high school at the Harvard-Westlake School, he played football for both Pierce College and UCLA, and helped the Bruins net a 17-5 record during his two years as quarterback. During this period, Harmon also began making sporadic appearances on television through his family connections: he shared the screen with his dad in a commercial for Kellogg's Product 19, and made his acting debut in an episode of "Ozzie's Girls" (syndicated, 1972-74), a comedy starring Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, at the behest of their son, pop singer Ricky Nelson, who was engaged to Harmon's sister, Kristen. But Harmon initially resisted a career in acting, focusing at first on law and later in advertising. Neither proved satisfying, and Harmon turned to actor/producer Jack Webb for advice. The "Dragnet" (NBC/Syndicated, 1951-59, 1967-1970) producer cast him in minor roles on several of his television projects, including "Emergency!" (NBC, 1972-77), which led to more work, albeit largely in ornamental roles, until 1977, when his turn as an amputee soldier in the TV-movie "Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years" (ABC, 1977) earned him an Emmy nomination. The acclaim led to appearances in feature films, most notably "Comes a Horseman" (1978) and "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" (1979) and plentiful television work. He enjoyed featured roles in major miniseries like "Centennial" (NBC, 1978-79), but achieved lasting stardom on the primetime soap "Flamingo Road " (NBC, 1980-82). As a small town deputy turned senator, Harmon was entangled with most of the female cast, including top-billed Morgan Fairchild, which minted him as a favored TV heartthrob. Eager to shed such a screen image, Harmon joined the cast of "St. Elsewhere" as playboy plastic surgeon Robert Caldwell. In a primetime television first, Caldwell's promiscuous nature led to him contracting the HIV virus, and the praise afforded to Harmon's performance allowed him to step outside of the "handsome leading man" field and explore more in-depth character roles. In this regard, he proved remarkably successful: he earned Golden Globes for his terrifying portrayal of serial killer Ted Bundy in "The Deliberate Stranger" and a Depression-Era carpenter struggling to retrieve his sons from foster care in "After the Promise" (CBS, 1987), and earned praise for turns opposite Elizabeth Taylor in a TV-movie version of "Sweet Bird of Youth" (NBC, 1989), as a potentially lethal father figure in a remake of "Shadow of a Doubt" (CBS, 1991) and as gangster John Dillinger in "Dillinger" (ABC, 1991), His success on the small screen naturally led to film opportunities, including Carl Reiner's broad comedy "Summer School" (1986), the thriller "The Presidio" (1988) with Sean Connery and a character turn as a faded baseball player in "Stealing Home" (1988). These efforts received only modest acclaim, and Harmon would soon return to television, first as a by-the-books detective forced to work with a hearing-impaired assistant district attorney on "Reasonable Doubts" (NBC, 1991-93). Though a critical favorite which earned Harmon his third and fourth Golden Globe nomination, the series proved short-lived, as did its follow-up, "Charlie Grace" (ABC, 1995). Harmon would spend the tail end of the '90s bouncing between occasional film appearances ("Wyatt Earp," 1994), guest turns on series - he played astronaut Wally Schirra on "From the Earth to the Moon" (HBO, 1998) - and TV-movies before returning to series work on "Chicago Hope" (CBS, 1996- 2000). When the series ran its course in 2000, Harmon enjoyed a four-episode arc as a Secret Service agent who became involved with press secretary C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney). Harmon earned his second Emmy nomination for the steely role, which inspired producer Donald P. Bellisario to cast him as the flinty NCIS agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs on "NCIS." The series became a runaway hit for the Tiffany Network and something of a cottage industry for Harmon, who began serving as producer for the series in 2008 and for its spin-off, "NCIS: New Orleans" (CBS, 2014- ) in 2014.
